The One That Gave Us Ground
by fourleggedfish
Summary: Trust can only be given where it is made welcome. Or, if Merlin really trusted Arthur - if Arthur were really everything the prophecy made him out to be - then why didn't Merlin tell him about his magic *before* Arthur was on death's door? Why didn't Merlin trust him to know?


**Summary** :

Trust can only be given where it is made welcome.

Or, if Merlin really trusted Arthur - if Arthur were really everything the prophecy made him out to be - then why didn't Merlin tell him about his magic *before* Arthur was on death's door? Why didn't Merlin trust him to know?

* * *

 **Notes** :

Warnings would, I feel, possibly give too much of the plot away and ruin it, but if you have triggers, just ctrl-end see the end notes before reading.

In my head cannon, Mordred died the way he should have because Merlin did NOT advise Arthur to renounce magic for good, so Arthur didn't, and the Disir let Mordred die while still a loyal knight because that was what had to happen. Because that, to me, was the single point at which Merlin failed in his destiny and everything came to ruin. And Arthur kept his word, sort of, by rescinding the ban on magic, but his "embracing" of magic leaves something to be desired because he's a bit of a prat. Morgana is still out there, but without Mordred as an ally (ie, without the man who was supposed to be destined to kill Arthur), she hasn't quite figured out her next move yet. So she's dormant, Camlann hasn't happened yet and may never happen. This particular story takes place sometime shortly after the disir, and after some other episodes still happen in this timeline, minus Mordred and the series finale.

This fic is mostly self-indulgence. The notion struck and insisted on being written down, so... I can't very well just keep it to myself, can I? I'm totally rolling in late to the Merlin party, and I know it, but maybe I my late can still be fashionable? :)

* * *

 **Pairings** :

Arthur/Guinevere because they're married and that just happens sometimes when you have to make heirs and stuff (I love fandoms where I have to put a warning for possible het-love so that nobody gets unexpectedly scarred for life, lol.)

Arthur/Merlin friendship and preslash

Gwaine/Merlin BFF's because they totally are

* * *

 _Trust in man was lost today_  
 _Trust in man that is never quite regained_  
 _Trust was lost when you started to betray_  
 _Trust was lost when you didn't care enough to say_  
 _Trust was lost when you used me as your social play_  
 _Trust was lost when you hurt me in front of family and those that used me as prey_  
 _Trust was lost when you denied me of my greatest day_  
 _Trust was lost when you ignored my loves and hates_  
 _Trust was lost when you borrowed and never repaid_  
 _Trust was lost when I gave and you treated me as a slave_  
 _Trust was lost when I cared and all you wanted was pay_  
 _Trust was lost when I loved and you treated me as the fool_  
 _Trust was lost when I had a great passion and you treated it as a ration_  
 _Trust was lost when I looked in your eyes and saw the truth, but you continued to lie_  
 _Trust was lost when I asked you to help and you never even tried_

 _(from "Trust is Found" by Jeff Rushton)_

* * *

The thing about Merlin was that however terrible he was at lying, he could put up a front and keep secrets with the best of them. Sort of. Arthur knew that look on him – a bit pinched around the mouth, eyes wide and far too earnest, and a suspicious lack of insults following the tidy explanation of how Arthur dispatched some new magical threat without being technically conscious. But this time, there had been no mysterious magical creatures around to be equally mysteriously killed in manners that Arthur could not recall…on account of the unconsciousness thing. Clearly, Merlin thought he was an idiot. Arthur thought that Merlin was the real idiot for thinking that Arthur was enough of an egotistical, idiotic prat to believe that he was such an amazing knight that he could kill _magical_ creatures while _unconscious_. He should be insulted. Truly, he should.

Instead, Arthur watched Merlin bumble around his quarters rearranging the clutter while Arthur ate. Something pinchy had taken up residence in the general vicinity of Merlin's mouth, and Arthur didn't like it. It meant that _things_ were going on that Arthur, evidently, was too much of an egotistical, idiotic prat to be privy to. He half feared that he was about to be unconscious in a moment, which meant that dangerous things were afoot. Merlin-y things. This would not do. He glanced at his food, contemplated his wine briefly, but really, if Merlin wanted him unconscious, there were safer ways than lacing his food. Safer being a subjective thing, of course, when one's secret sorcerer believes that his sorcery is still secret. If Merlin were a better liar, it probably would be, but then Arthur wouldn't trust him half as much, and wasn't that just a pretty conundrum.

Arthur eyed the back of Merlin's head and then asked, "Is something bothering you?"

Merlin dropped a platter piled with plates and half eaten bits of food. He retained his grip on a fork, though. Good for him.

"Right. I'm going to assume that's a yes, then." Arthur paused. "You may as well drop the fork too. It's not like it will make the mess any worse."

Merlin blinked, twitched a bit, and then blurted, "Sorry! Sorry, I'll just…" He dropped himself instead of the fork and started gathering up the mess with his hands.

Well, that hadn't been the reaction he'd been after. "Merlin, they make these things called rags… You know, bits of cloth? You may have heard of them – servants dip them in water and then use them to clean up messes. Much more efficient than hands."

"Better water retention," Merlin agreed, but he sounded far too winded for that quip, and it didn't chirp the way it should have. It just sort of fell flat from his mouth and plopped in with the lumpy bits of congealed soup spreading on the stone floor.

Arthur's brows drew down of their own accord. "Yes. Merlin, seriously. You're not yourself. You're not all…" He twiddled his fingers at Merlin's general position. "…twittery and annoying like…like birds or chipmunks or something."

"It's fine," Merlin chirped. It was a bit manic. "See? Fine – I'm twittering." He wiggled his fingers, covered in glops of so-called soup, and grinned. Arthur thought it looked more like melted wax than a grin. One of the glops slid off and splattered back onto the floor. Which was worse after Merlin's scraping and…and twittering. "I'll get that!"

Arthur frowned outright and watched Merlin skitter across the room to the cupboard for a rag to properly clean up the mess. Clearly, he would get nothing out of Merlin this way. His servant was impervious to questioning. It was a very good quality to have in a servant, unless it was Arthur's servant, and Arthur was doing the questioning. "Yes, well you'd better. I _am_ the king, you know. Is it too much to ask for my chambers to be less than slovenly?"

"Yes, sire. I mean _no_ , sire. I mean – look! Rags." Merlin started piling the spilled dishes properly and then scrubbed at the floor with about a dozen rags, no water, and far too much smiling. Or at least, Arthur assumed that the grimacing bit was supposed to come off as smiling to poor, egotistical, oblivious prat-Arthur who slew magical beasts in his sleep. Apparently.

Right. Merlin was acting more like an idiot than usual, and treating Arthur more like an idiot than usual, and calling him _sire,_ and there were no obvious magical creatures about. Clearly, other measures were called for.

* * *

"Sire?"

Arthur glanced over at Gwaine, who looked like he couldn't decide if he should also crouch and peek around the corner, or just stand there like a normal fellow. "Gwaine." Arthur stood up straight and pulled his jacket back into place. "On your way to practice?"

"Yes." He gave Arthur a suspicious side-eye. "Is something going on?"

Arthur made a face and laughed. He hoped that didn't sound as strained as his throat thought it was. "No. Everything's fine. I was just…you know." He flapped his hand a bit and just hoped that Gwaine assumed that it meant something plausible.

Gwaine's face got pinchy. "I'm afraid that I don't."

"You _know_ ," Arthur insisted. This was not going to plan. "I'm doing…kingly things. Looking…at things… Those things!" He pointed around the corner, out into the training field where Merlin was setting up various targets and making himself far too obvious about not really looking at the knights gearing up on the other side of the field.

Gwaine tipped his head up as if to nod, but his chin didn't make it back down.

Arthur nodded. Too much though, to judge by how the pinching on Gwaine's face got worse. "Right," Arthur said. "Well, I'll be off. To practice. Are you coming?"

"Yes, sire." Gwaine tried not to be obvious about giving Arthur strange looks from out of the corner of his eye as they walked out onto the field, but he was kind of terrible about not being obvious.

"I have a cold," Arthur explained. That should clear things up. He sniffled and scratched his nose for dramatic effect. "Makes my head a bit wobbly."

Gwaine nodded agreeably. "I think I should go fetch Gaius." He detoured to the sidelines where, as luck would have it, Gaius stood watching the training preparations for no good reason, as he never had before. Gwaine said something to him, and Gaius looked at Arthur with alarm on his face.

Right, well that wasn't what Arthur had been going for at all.

* * *

Things went on in this vein for five days. It was wearing on Arthur's already lacking patience. And while the whole spying-on-Merlin thing had been interesting for the first day or so, Arthur had long since tipped over into outright worry. Merlin was not himself at all, and the nervous twittering had given way to dark circles under his eyes, strange silences, and flinching. _Flinching_. Something was very wrong here. Merlin did not flinch, not like that.

Arthur pulled at his armor where it chafed a bit around his shoulder, and surreptitiously loosened a strap so that his mail didn't dig into the flesh under his right arm quite so badly. Merlin was standing with some of the squires at the sidelines of the practice field, but he wasn't quite close enough to be part of their group. He looked miserable and exhausted, and a few other things that were out of place on his sharp features. Arthur couldn't recall seeing them there before. Fear. Despair. Resignation. However much Arthur may insult Merlin's courage or competence – in good fun, he thought – Merlin really wasn't all that stupid, and not at all cowardly. He didn't fear things in the same way that Arthur and other normal people, like knights, feared things. And he certainly didn't despair.

Clinking and huffing signaled someone coming up beside him, and Arthur glanced over at Gwaine. They nodded to each other and Gwaine's eyes followed to where Arthur had been staring. Quietly, he confirmed Arthur's unspoken thought. "Something's wrong."

Arthur sighed. At least it wasn't just him. Gwaine was Merlin's friend; he understood.

"He won't talk to me about it," Gwaine added. "It's not normal."

"His mother, perhaps? If she's ill…" Arthur trailed off and raised an eyebrow at Gwaine.

"No," Gwaine said. He shook his head and his frustration came across clear as battle standards on a bright day. "Gaius has letters from her; she's fine." He pressed his lips together, then said, "He's skittish, and he's avoiding me. If this doesn't stop, I'm going to start hitting people until someone tells me what's going on."

Arthur grimaced at the cloudless sky, and carefully suggested, "Magic?"

If stillness could be menacing, Gwaine was suddenly far more of a threat than Arthur had ever thought him capable. "What are you suggesting, sire?"

So Gwaine _did_ know. Just how many people did Merlin trust more than Arthur – enough to tell them about his magic, that is? Arthur had moved past his hurt a long time ago. He was aware that the first thing Merlin saw on his first day in Camelot was a sorcerer being executed for something probably not worth dying over, with Arthur in quiet attendance over the act. And still, Merlin stayed, and used his magic to protect the city and the royal family (and Arthur) that would have seen him dead too. Arthur hadn't earned Merlin's trust, not in this. The knowledge was not pleasant, but Arthur understood. And he would wait as long as it took to be found worthy.

Apparently, Arthur took too long to explain his comment, because Gwaine turned to face him full on and pointed out, his voice a sharp bite for all its softness, "Magic is no longer illegal, sire. _You_ decreed that."

Arthur shifted his eyes back to Gwaine, taken aback by the hostility of what should have been plain facts. "I don't mean Merlin," he snapped. "However much he still lies to me about it, I don't blame him for keeping his silence."

Gwaine blinked, his head moving back on his neck like an affronted chicken. "Oh." He nodded, glanced again at Merlin, and then loosened his posture. "Right, of course not. It's just that you can be a dick sometimes, so I had to make sure."

"You forget that I'm actually the king." Arthur gave him a sour look on principle. "You can't just call me a dick."

"Must have hit my head at practice," Gwaine replied, flippant. "Makes me forget things sometimes. You can't hold my injuries against me. It wouldn't be kingly of you."

"Or maybe it's the drink," Arthur suggested.

"Don't be silly."

Arthur snorted, but the mirth faded quickly as he watched Merlin shrink back when a few of the knights passed by on the way into the castle to clean up. He narrowed his eyes and made a note of which knights those were. Sirs Reginald, Caradoc and Percival. He thought about discounting Percival, but he'd seen enchantment turn his own wife against him. He couldn't keep making assumptions where magic was at play.

"He hasn't actually told me either," Gwaine said, apropos of nothing.

It took Arthur a moment to resurrect the string of the conversation. "It was the magical beasts," Arthur said. "For me, I mean. He kept trying to claim that I slayed them when I know for a fact I was unconscious on the ground for most of them."

Gwaine's lips pulled back to reveal teeth and he chuckled. "No wonder your ego's gotten so big."

"Oi!"

"It was the tavern for me." Gwaine glanced at Arthur from the corner of his eye. "The first time we met. He was throwing plates and benches at those thugs without using his hands. As if no one would notice, the bloody fool."

"He confessed in front of the entire court once, including my father – did you know that? I had to drag him out by his scruff." Arthur laughed. "He's absolute pants at hiding it, anyway. My baths never grow cold, and he thinks I won't notice? I'd be insulted that he takes us for such fools, but it's kind of funny."

"His face," Gwaine snorted and made a passable imitation of Merlin's dumb face. "Who, me? I'm just a servant. That tree limb fell on that bandit all on its own, same as the last three." He made his eyes as big and hapless as he could and Arthur let the amusement shake his chest for a moment.

After a bit of a shared laugh, Arthur sobered, his mouth pulling back down in concern. "Keep an eye on him, will you? He won't ask us for help if it's something to do with magic."

"He doesn't realize he's not alone in that," Gwaine pointed out. "He's been hiding his whole life. That kind of habit is hard to break."

"I know," Arthur sighed. He has reminded himself of that dozens of times when the knowledge of how little Merlin actually trusts him threatens to overwhelm him. "The fear alone would cripple most men."

"Merlin's not most men."

"No, he's not." Arthur watched while Merlin gathered up various weaponry and disappeared into the armory. "I don't like this. If he weren't perfectly capable of defending himself, I'd think someone's threatened him."

Gwaine pursed his lips. "He wouldn't, necessarily. Defend himself, I mean. Merlin…I don't think he has much sense of his own worth, sometimes. And anyway, if the threat were against you…"

Arthur closed his eyes briefly, because he knew exactly what Gwaine meant. Merlin would do anything – _anything_ – to keep Arthur from harm. He would endure any humiliation, take any punishment, ingest poison… "It's stupid to be so loyal. He's the biggest idiot I've ever met."

"Oh, I agree. He could have done so much better than you. Such bad taste, poor lad."

Arthur made a rude gesture and Gwaine grinned.

* * *

It took a fortnight for Arthur to decide that he had perhaps overreacted, and that Merlin had simply been under the weather. He appeared more well-rested, less pale, and while still unnervingly quiet, some of his usual, incessant cheer returned. They rode out on a four day patrol with Percival, Elyan and Leon while Gwaine remained behind to nurse a sprained wrist and complain about his boredom to anyone who would listen. Arthur watched his manservant around the campfire their last night out and refused to admit his relief that whatever trouble had been brewing, or whatever illness, it was now past. They bedded down late, after the moon set, and Arthur pretended not to notice that Merlin's last-minute gathering of extra firewood was just a flimsy excuse to lay protective charms around the perimeter of their camp. Merlin had to be the noblest fool he'd ever met. It amazed him now, how his father had never caught him.

They crested the rise of the road into Camelot's shadow at mid-afternoon of the next day. Arthur had been discussing their current patrols with Leon for most of the morning, and he almost missed the fleeting expression on Merlin's face when the towers came into view. For a moment, Arthur experienced an overwhelming certainty that Merlin was about to turn his horse and bolt, but the tension left his servant's frame almost as soon as it appeared. Leon continued speaking of the southern border with Essetir and Arthur paid attention, but he watched Merlin too. As the shadows cast by the walls grew deeper, it was almost as if Merlin drew in on himself the way a fledgling bird might huddle against the cold. If Arthur hadn't just spent several days with Merlin acting as his old, normal self, he might not have noticed.

Stable hands met them in the courtyard to relieve them of their horses and gear, and Merlin took the reins of Arthur's horse himself. Arthur watched him walk away with their two mounts trailing placidly behind him. No one else was paying much attention, and Arthur left the knights to their chatter and their squires before slipping off toward the royal stables. He could hear Merlin speaking to the horses as soon as he neared the door, because of course Merlin pampered them like kittens rather than the war mounts that they were. After making sure that no one else was near, Arthur slipped into the stables, keeping well out of sight of Merlin where he tended the horses in their stalls.

Merlin finished with Arthur's steed and had just started on his own when Sir Caradoc ambled in from the door leading to the fields. Merlin's soft conversation with the horse suddenly stopped, and Arthur risked coming out around the edge of the stalls to see what was going on. Caradoc had come to lean against the stall door and watch while Merlin continued to rub his horse down. Soon enough, though, Caradoc ducked under the rope and Merlin looked up with the horse brush in one hand and a cloth in the other. The horse whickered, annoyed, and nudged Merlin hard enough that he had to step to the side and reset his weight to avoid falling over. Caradoc said something and Merlin shook his head before going back to his chore, but he kept Caradoc in his periphery, and Caradoc continued to stand there, expectant.

Arthur was about to step out and create some sort of diversion when Merlin, apparently finished, came back into view from the other side of horse. He eyed Caradoc warily but followed when Caradoc ducked out of the stall, holding the rope up for Merlin after him. They both left the stable and while Arthur considered following, something stopped him. He went to the door and watched instead as Merlin trailed Caradoc with his head down, over the slope of the field and into the tack room. On the other side of the field, various knights slashed at each other with blunted training swords, and the laundresses hung out sheets and tunics to dry in the warm breeze. Arthur waited, uneasy. He knew what stable boys and knights got up to in the tack room, but Merlin…surely not.

Caradoc left the tack room eventually, his steps loose and swaggering, and Arthur waited for Merlin to appear too. When he didn't, long after Caradoc had been lost from sight, Arthur pushed away from the door frame and made his way down to the tack room. He loitered outside, listening for signs of life, but all he heard was some rustling that could have been the wind. He pushed the door open and caught Merlin crashing his way up to his feet, his eyes wild, startled. Arthur blinked at him, considered for a moment, and then stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

"It's not what it looks like."

Arthur tipped his head and let his eyebrows climb into his hairline, because from what he could see, it was exactly what it looked like. Merlin's hair a mess, his trouser legs covered in sawdust…mouth red and puffy… But as much as Arthur knew his tendency to jump to conclusions, he could not possibly have mistaken the faint smell of vomit in the air, or Merlin's shaking hands, or the look on his face.

"I'm just repairing Sir Caradoc's saddle."

Arthur took a deep breath and gave the room a pointed look. "I don't see a saddle, Merlin."

"Right." Merlin grinned, and it was a sickly little thing. "I forgot…it's still in the stable. I'll just get it – "

Arthur pushed Merlin back when he sought to skirt around Arthur and out the door, hand pressed firm to Merlin's chest. "The vomit isn't normally a good sign."

Merlin sucked in a few breaths, too rapid and shallow, and Arthur could see the panic start somewhere behind his eyes. "It's not what you think."

"I think it's exactly what I think," Arthur countered. He gripped Merlin's bicep, not nearly enough muscle or fat on the man, and propelled him to a stool. Merlin seemed surprised to encounter it and even more so to find himself sat upon it. He looked up, eyes wide, at Arthur standing above him. "I'd like an explanation, Merlin."

Nothing came out of his manservant at first, and then he looked straight ahead at Arthur's britches. Before Arthur knew what was happening, Merlin had grabbed at the laces. Shocked, Arthur grabbed his hands, perhaps too roughly and yanked them away. "What are you doing?!"

"It's fine," Merlin gasped, but that was panic and nothing more. "I know how – it's fine, I can just – "

Arthur amended his thought that Merlin needed more muscle on him as he pressed the man back with more force than he should have needed. Merlin toppled off of the stool and the workbench wobbled when he knocked his shoulder against it. Arthur held him firm against the leg of the work table, horrified and trying not to let any of his revulsion show. Merlin struggled for a moment, more fear than anything else, and Arthur could see, over in the corner, imprints in the dirt where Caradoc had stood and Merlin had kneeled.

"Please, it's _fine_ – "

"Merlin, look at me."

"Just let me, please – "

"No!" Arthur adjusted his grip until he had both of Merlin's wrists in one hand, which was not easy, and when had his scrawny servant acquired the wiry strength of a man anyway? He tried to get Merlin to look at him with his other hand, and then when that didn't work, he tried to cup the back of his head where he had smacked it into the table. "Merlin, stop struggling!"

Merlin froze, his eyes squeezed shut and his breath coming harsh and frantic in the sudden silence.

Arthur waited long enough to be sure that Merlin was finished, and then gently released him. Instead of this helping anything, the loss of Arthur's touch made him flinch, violently, and knock his head against the edge of the workbench yet again.

"Easy now," Arthur murmured, wincing in sympathy as Merlin rubbed at the top of his head. He never thought that _this_ was a conversation he would need to have with his manservant, but evidently… "You're not required to submit to those kinds of services. You understand that, right? Servant or no, you have the right to refuse that, even to me."

Miserable, his eyes resolutely trained anywhere but on Arthur, Merlin replied, "I know."

Arthur nodded, and then immediately shook his head. "Do you? Merlin, this is – You can't seriously expect me to believe that you agreed to this freely."

"I did."

Arthur stared at him. "Merlin – "

"I told you it's fine! I know what I'm doing."

Arthur's mouth opened to deliver another rebuttal, but he didn't have one. Merlin wouldn't look directly at him, and the shuddering of his chest betrayed his attempts to rein in his reaction to Arthur finding him like this. Every crease of Merlin's features had clamped down in grim determination, and Arthur realized for the first time that Merlin's lack of trust in Arthur extended beyond the issue of magic. He trusted Arthur with his life, with Camelot's rule, with large kingly responsibilities and hundreds of other things, but not with his magic and not with this. What else might there be that Merlin bore alone because he didn't think that Arthur would understand, or even care?

"Merlin…"

Finally, Merlin looked at him, but the expression on his face – it was closed, pained, and worst of all for Arthur, betrayed. "I don't need you to protect me."

Arthur could only work his jaw for a moment, because he didn't understand what he'd done to make Merlin believe that Arthur didn't return the loyalty that Merlin had given him. Did he really think so little of Arthur? What he did say, eventually, was, "Then there is something that you need protection from."

Merlin's nostrils flared and he shoved himself away from the table and up to his feet, where he wobbled but refused to acknowledge the unsteadiness. "I have duties, sire."

Arthur also rose, trying to think of some way to salvage this, fix this, and take that look off of Merlin's face. "If Caradoc has done something – "

Merlin snorted, but it was an ugly sound. "I think you know exactly what Caradoc has done."

Arthur's own ire bubbled up from wherever he had pushed it. How dare Merlin take out his frustration on Arthur, make this out to be somehow Arthur's fault. " _Mer_ lin – "

"Excuse me, sire." Merlin didn't even attempt some mockery of a bow; he simply walked out. Where panic had bled away, Arthur now saw only anger sharpening the movements of Merlin's limbs. Rage with nowhere to go.

Arthur fumed in silence and stopped himself multiple times from storming after his servant, because he could hardly cause a scene like that, chase him through the halls while Merlin ignored him and refused to even pause. He also couldn't confront Caradoc, who would no doubt proclaim the dalliance to be just a bit of fun, and with Merlin refusing to accuse him of wrongdoing… Surely Merlin didn't think that Arthur would discount his complaint just because Caradoc was a noble, a knight. Those customs had stopped years ago, in the first year of Arthur's reign. Their _queen_ was a former maidservant, for goodness' sake. Nobles no longer had a free pass on their behavior. The knight's code wasn't just lip service on that point anymore. Merlin knew that. He _knew_ that.

Didn't he?

* * *

The private dining hall favored by his father had always seemed an oppressive place to Arthur. Perhaps that was why he felt like taking his dinner here today, rather than in his chambers with only Gwen for company. Said lovely queen appeared uncomfortable in her seat here, however – at the place where Morgana had once sat. Arthur shouldn't have insisted on eating here, but it was done now. His pheasant, roasted to perfection, sat cold on his plate while he fought with himself over how much wine would be too reminiscent of his father's drinking habits. Wine had never helped Uther to rule better. Or to do much of anything else, for that matter. Arthur took a long swallow of what was left in his goblet and then clutched it against himself to prevent its being refilled. He could see Gwen frowning to his left.

Finally, the atmosphere tipped from oppressive to uncomfortable, and Gwen told the servants to leave. Arthur spared a glance at George's back and his foul mood increased tenfold. Merlin hadn't attended him at all since the encounter in the tack room that afternoon, though Arthur knew he'd been in to tidy the King's chambers. With magic, no less; Merlin didn't seem to realize that there was a certain smell to it, like the raising of the hairs on one's arms after a storm, or old lightning.

Gwen stared at the side of his head, expectant, and then sighed. "Please tell me what's troubling you, Arthur. You've been upset since you returned from patrol. Did something happen?"

Arthur roused himself from his slouch sideways in his chair and set the goblet down. It wobbled a bit, but remained upright. "No, it was uneventful."

"Did you fight with Merlin?"

"Did I what? Gwen – "

"Well, he's not here, is he?" She looked at him as if she were considering pity in response to his upset. "And he's a bit of a fanatic about tasting your food before it gets to you. If he's not actually up here serving you, and he's not hurt, then he's avoiding you on purpose."

Arthur let his eyelids slip closed, because of course he knew what Gwen was getting at. Merlin had likely intercepted their meal in the halls, tested it for poison the way he always did because Arthur had tried dozens of times to stop him and failed. And then when he'd decided that nothing was amiss, he had not come up to the dining hall with it. He'd left it to George. And Merlin harbored an emphatic dislike of George. It was entirely obvious that something was wrong. Arthur sighed, and then admitted, "I don't know what to do."

Gwen's fingers laced into his where they rested on the arm of his chair and squeezed. "Why don't you tell me what's going on?"

He didn't want to. He hadn't put any of it into words yet. As long as it remained unspoken, he didn't have to deal with it. Rather than get into the sordid details, he merely said, "Merlin doesn't trust me."

"This is about his magic?" Gwen sounded incredulous. "Arthur, I know you want him to tell you, but you know what it's been like for him."

"It's nothing to do with his magic." Arthur shifted and looked down at their joined hands, his face pinched. "Guinevere…" He trailed off and then forced himself to just say it, hesitant with the words that he chose. "I think at least one of my knights is taking liberties with his person."

The silence felt brittle and Arthur missed the warmth of Gwen's hand as she slowly withdrew it. "You can't mean – "

"Yes. I mean that." Arthur clenched his abandoned fingers into a fist and then relaxed them again with significant effort.

Gwen shook her head where she sat in his periphery. "No, I don't believe that. Merlin's never… Arthur, he's _never_. There must be some mistake."

"It was clear to me that he didn't want to." Arthur swallowed the sick feeling in the back of his throat. "I think it started several weeks ago. I didn't know…" _what was wrong, why Merlin turned so anxious, what might have been happening, why…_ "I didn't know."

They sat in silence for several long moments while the candle flames flickered and the food congealed as it grew colder. Finally, Gwen drew a resolute breath. "This can't go on. I'll vouch for him at court. It won't be just a servant's word against a knight's."

Arthur blinked long and slow. "He doesn't need you to vouch for him, Guinevere. I uphold the code exactly as written. Knights do not automatically receive absolution just because their accuser is a servant."

"Then why would he just let it go on?" Immediately after saying that, she seemed to reach the same conclusion that Arthur had after an entire afternoon of furious thinking on the matter. "Is he being threatened?"

"Or I am." Arthur dipped his head and rubbed his knuckles into his forehead. "He wouldn't hesitate to do that if I were the price otherwise."

"Oh, Arthur." Gwen took a deliberate, shuddering breath and worried her hands together in her lap. Then she fixed him with a hard look. "You cannot let this continue."

"He won't speak to me."

"Then I'll speak to him myself."

"No." Arthur pushed himself upright. "Guinevere, no. I realize he's your friend, but if there is some…some plot at court, you cannot put yourself in a position to become a target." When she looked ready to argue, Arthur added, "He'd never forgive himself if you came to harm for him. Don't make it worse, please."

"Well then, what are you doing to fix this?" Gwen demanded.

Arthur swallowed and looked down at his hands, spread across the tabletop before him. "I don't know. I don't know the extent of this – if there's some wider plot, or if it's just the one. And I don't know Merlin's intentions either. If he's playing some longer game and I step in now, I could ruin whatever he's trying to accomplish, and then what he's done… It will be meaningless."

"And he'd be devastated," Gwen finished. She sniffed, dainty but wet, just a little. "But why doesn't he tell you? You'd help – he wouldn't have to do this alone."

And that was the crux of it, of why Arthur felt so helpless now. "Because he doesn't trust me." He looked up at Gwen. "With some things, still, he just…doesn't."

Gwen bit her lip. "Magic. It's to do with magic after all."

"I think it must, at least in part." Arthur drew a deep breath and let it out at a measured pace. "This is my fault. He did this because he felt he had no choice, and it's my fault for not making it clear that he can tell me about the magic – that I won't be angry, or have him banished or executed for lying to me about it."

"You're not the only one with blame to bear, Arthur. You're not the only one who knows and stayed silent."

"I didn't want to force his confidence," Arthur said.

"None of us did." Gwen sat back in her chair, her spine straightening. "But we haven't been welcoming either. We let class keep us apart. In spite of all of our pretty words, and me not being nobility at all, we still let it get in the way. We're his friends."

Arthur nodded, but added, "He doesn't seem to know that."

Gwen swallowed audibly. "And we're to blame for it. Because he's always been ours."

With a decisive nod, Arthur set his chin and leaned forward on his elbows, hands clasped. "We need to know who we can trust. Gwaine, certainly – he noticed something amiss and came to me already. And Percival, Elyan and Leon. Merlin was back to his old self on the patrol, so they must not be part of it." He paused. "Caradoc is part of it. That's who I caught him with today."

Gwen threw him a sharp look and then seemed to visibly restrain herself from some ill-advised comment or action in response to that knowledge. "Then that's where we start. Leon, Gwaine, Percival and Elyan."

Arthur nodded his agreement, and the he gave his queen a slight smile. "I love you."

Gwen smiled back, a tolerant little thing, full of a woman's secrets and wisdom. "Of course you do."

"Impertinent." He gave her a proper grin then. "Just the way I like my queens."

Gwen threw a grape at his head, but their mirth faded quickly. They gave each other a pointed look, and Arthur suddenly felt less adrift. He didn't deserve this woman any more than he deserved Merlin, but he had them both. It was imperative that he make certain to keep them. Gwen seemed to mirror his sentiments in the determined set of her lips, and they reached to grip fingers at the same time. There was work to be done.

* * *

It was difficult to meet in secret in the middle of a royal court, especially for the king, and even more especially if he expected Merlin not to cotton onto it. It took a few days to arrange because of that, in order to maintain secrecy and eliminate the chance of gossip. Arthur tried to keep close watch on Merlin during that time, but even with Merlin resuming his regular duties, Arthur found himself distressingly aware of just how often Merlin disappeared each day. It could have been innocuous – Merlin did any number of things every day away from Arthur, of which Arthur was only barely cognizant. But knowing what he did, and only vaguely at that, Arthur found every stretch of absence troubling, and he could not quite hide his scrutiny each time Merlin returned to attend him.

Merlin himself was another matter altogether. Arthur hesitated to call him surly, because it was far too uncharitable a word for Merlin even on the worst of days, but there were silences now where there shouldn't be. Arthur felt the strain between them like a palpable shroud in the room, and Merlin, the world's worst manservant, suddenly seemed unable to be anything but impeccable in his duties. Arthur even gave up on teasing and baiting him because for the first time, it struck him as cruel, and Merlin wouldn't rise to it when he tried. He wondered if Merlin feared to be dismissed or sent away after what happened in the tack room, but that, too, was not like Merlin. Arthur sacked him on a regular basis, and yet Merlin kept showing up regardless. This time should have been no different, except that it was, and even on his best behavior, Arthur could see the shadow of fear in him.

When they finally managed to meet, it was past midnight in a small room in the mostly unused north wing of the castle, and Arthur almost didn't manage to make it there unseen. Guinevere came with him because she refused to be left apart from this, and in reality, Arthur didn't think that she should be excluded anyway. She had been Merlin's friend before any of the rest of them, and while Merlin might not realize that she knew he had been the one to save her father's life with the enchanted poultice, Gwen _did_ know. It had taken years, of course, for her and Arthur to put it together, to realize that Merlin hadn't confessed on a lark, that he'd been doing the only thing he knew how to do to save Gwen's life when he announced to Uther and all of the court that he was the sorcerer. No doubt, Merlin had felt responsible for her arrest in the first place, as he was. But he had been willing to rectify that with his life, and nearly had. Deeds like that could not easily be forgotten.

Arthur slipped into the old antechamber and held the door for Gwen as well before closing and the bolting it behind him. He spared a wistful thought for spells to seal them against escaping sound and eavesdroppers, but the only trusted sorcerer of their acquaintance was the one they were trying not to alert to their meeting. Subterfuge tended to make soundproofing spells difficult to obtain.

Leon bowed his head briefly to Arthur, followed by Elyan and Percival. Gwaine didn't move, his arms crossed and his face troubled. Gwen moved to the table and brushed off a dusty chair before sitting, patient and worn with worry.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I've called you here like this," Arthur began. "We have a problem, and right now, I can only be sure of the people in this room. Nothing spoken here leaves this circle. Is that understood?"

Everyone gave their assent, but Leon hesitated afterward. "Sire, I cannot help noticing that Merlin is not among us."

Arthur nodded and took a breath to steady himself. It was a forgone conclusion that Merlin should always stand among the trusted few. Of course his absence would be worth noting. "It is a delicate situation."

Only Gwaine appeared unsurprised as Arthur filled them all in. He looked a bit murderous when Arthur described what happened in the tack room, but his mien was of a man whose fears had been confirmed, and nothing more. No one spoke immediately after Arthur finished, and he took the moment to sit down in the chair beside Guinevere, who appeared both furious and downtrodden. Gwaine followed them to the table a moment later, and it seemed to be the catalyst for everyone else to move as well. They all took seats and frowned at their own handprints smudging the edges of the table in dust.

It was Leon who voiced his opinion first. "We should confront Merlin about this, for no other reason than that he knows more than we do."

Elyan shook his head. "Why hasn't he said anything to us?"

Arthur looked up, and only then realized that Elyan didn't know about the magic. He glanced over at Leon, who appeared to want to say something but thought it unwise, and then to Percival, who also looked puzzled.

Again, Leon broke the silence, choosing his words with care. "Sire, if he's in this position, it's by choice. If it were only Caradoc…"

"Merlin is more than capable of handling one knight on his own, yes," Arthur finished. "You know, then?"

Leon visibly warred with himself for a moment, and then said, "He has magic."

Elyan started, his eyes wide. " _Merlin_?"

Beside him, Percival merely stated, "That explains some things."

All Arthur said to that was, "Yes." It served to answer all three of them perfectly well. After some thought, he added, "Merlin doesn't know that any of us are aware of it."

Elyan shook his head, his features arranged into something unkind. "He's been lying to us all this time?"

"No," Gwen replied, her voice sharp. "He's been protecting us even though he would have been killed if he had ever been caught at it." She drew back, as if chastening herself, and added more softly, "Think of how terrified he's been most of his life, living here. And yet he still used his magic, time and again, to save us, knowing that his only reward if anyone found out would be the pyre. No one could simply cast that off one day just because Arthur lifts the ban on magic. Could you imagine any way that confessing it now would not end badly – to tell the _king_ that he's been lying to his face for over a decade?"

"But you know," Elyan pointed out.

Arthur gave him a pointed look and said, again, "He doesn't know that."

"As far as he knows," Gwen added, "Arthur will be furious with him for hiding something so important. The lying itself is treason even if the magic is not."

Leon narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't seriously arrest him for that, sire?"

"Of course not." Arthur tapped his fingertips in a light staccato against the table, restless.

Finally, Gwaine spoke, his voice rough and accusing. "Merlin believes otherwise. No one has given him any reason to think he'd be shown clemency on that point." Unspoken was the intimation that in some ways, Arthur was too like his father, and that in matters of truth, he could be just as unyielding as Uther, however unfair.

"We should tell him."

Everyone looked over to where Percival sat slightly apart from them, empty chairs acting as a buffer against his bulk.

As if he didn't even notice the scrutiny, Percival added, "He doesn't smile anymore."

Arthur tried not to react to the stark simplicity of that. "Telling him could put him, or us, in more danger. We don't know what plot he's discovered, or what threats they're using against him."

"We also don't know what else they may make him do," Gwaine pointed out. "He could cause a lot of damage trying to keep you safe, things he might not otherwise consent to if he knew that he had support from us."

Arthur nodded. "Yes. That's the thing about blackmail, isn't it. It's a tricky business."

Gwaine frowned. "He won't react well."

Gwen straightened and said, "Surely it can't be worse than what's currently going on."

The only one who appeared unsure was Elyan. Arthur caught his eye and tried to give him a look to encourage him to voice his opinion. Uncomfortably, Elyan glanced around at the others and then said, "Are you certain he's to be trusted at all? He has magic, and he's been keeping it from us. There's no telling, really, what all he's done with it."

The tension came swift to the table. Before Arthur could think of a diplomatic answer, Leon snapped, "If you didn't know he had magic, you'd never say something so vile. Merlin isn't capable of betraying us; he'd die first."

"He saved our father's life," Gwen said. Her voice came out clogged with emotion and hard with rebuke. "And when I was accused of sorcery for the doing of it, Merlin confessed to _Uther_ to try to save me. Don't you dare sit there and doubt his integrity. You've no right."

Elyan looked away, then down at his hands, unhappy but silent about it.

Arthur felt it necessary to add, "He has my complete trust, Elyan."

"Of course, sire." Elyan didn't meet anyone's eyes when he said it, though.

Gwaine spent a few heartbeats glaring at the side of Elyan's head, and then dismissed him entirely from his notice. "I agree with Percival. Merlin needs to know he's not alone; he needs help in this."

Leon nodded as well. "I agree. If there are knights involved, then we have to know. Even if it exposes the plot entirely, I'd rather have to counter rash actions born of panic than something carefully planned and executed from within by unknown traitors."

"Especially traitors using magic," Gwen said. "The amount of damage that they could do, enchantments they could place on anyone in the castle…"

Arthur reached over and wrapped his fingers over her clenched ones before saying, "Elyan? You're part of this, and if you're not with us, then we need to account for that."

Elyan looked up, stricken.

"If you cannot see past your prejudice against magic, I can send you out of the city on an extended patrol," Arthur offered. "But I will have your word that you will speak of this to no one, or you can remain isolated under guard until we've resolved the situation."

Gwen looked to her brother, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. "Elyan, you're better than this. Just because you've been harmed by magic, it doesn't make all magic evil." She paused, glanced down at Arthur's hand intertwined with both of hers, and said, "I was bewitched by Morgana to betray Arthur and Camelot. I know how you feel, Elyan, after the druid boy… But if you let the fear win, then you're no better than them, and you don't deserve to be here."

Elyan dropped his gaze and looked off to the far wall as if the shadows could give him answers. Finally, he said, "Merlin never treated me like a peasant. I was knighted, and to him, that was the end of it. I was a knight. I was noble, and he treated me like that as if it were only natural. There was never anything I felt like I had to prove to him." He looked down again, his face betraying his struggle. "Merlin made me feel like I deserved this, even when I'm not sure that I do." A few moments passed, punctuated by the creek of chair legs and the sound of dust settling. "I'm with you." Elyan looked up. "If I don't do this, then he's wrong, and I don't deserve this at all."

It felt as if the room breathed a sigh of relief, and Percival clapped Elyan on the shoulder hard enough to knock him against the table.

"Right, then," Gwaine said, his face cheerier than it had any right to be this far after midnight. "How are we going to do this?"

* * *

Originally, the plan was to call Merlin to attend Arthur in the private dining hall for a small gathering of knights, and then lock him in with them. Gwaine seemed to think that Merlin would panic completely once he realized that they knew about the magic, so they thought that somewhere with thick walls and little risk of being overheard would be best. Truthfully, Arthur didn't know what to expect. He could picture anything from Merlin trying unnecessarily to defend himself with magic, and bringing the entire roof down like the clumsy idiot he is, to Merlin simply making his annoyed face at them and calling Arthur names for letting him stew for so long.

But when Merlin showed up that morning with a fresh bowl of autumn squash soup and the tantalizing scent of pumpkin rolls wafting from the breakfast tray, Arthur fumbled himself straight out of bed, salivating before his feet touched the floor. As a result, he made it over to the table in time to see bruises where Merlin's shirt sleeves had ridden up from balancing the tray across his arm. All thoughts of careful, private confessions, and a delicious breakfast, disintegrated. He was only glad that Gwen had retired to her own chambers last night, so that she didn't need to see that too.

Arthur stood stock still as Merlin set the tray down and then laid out the food in complete silence. When he straightened, Arthur grabbed him by the wrist, causing Merlin to jump, and held it up between them. "What is this?" Pressure bruises, as if from too tight a grip, ringed Merlin's forearm.

"You know me, sire. I'm clumsy."

Arthur narrowed his eyes, and then peered more closely at Merlin's shuttered face, the unnaturally wary features, until he felt something deadly calm descend on him. "Was this Caradoc again?"

Merlin's nostrils flared, but where he seemed to be trying for contempt, all Arthur saw was that quality of fear that horses showed before they spooked. "Not that it's any of your business, but no. Let me go."

"No." Arthur looked down at him, Merlin's wrist still gripped firm between them. "Where else are you bruised?"

Surprisingly, Merlin bared his teeth at that. "You have no right to dictate how I spend my free time."

It was difficult, but Arthur restrained his temper as it threatened to flare, because Merlin wasn't the one who should be bearing the brunt of it. He released Merlin's wrist, but moved to block the door before Merlin could recover from the unexpected freedom. "Show me."

Merlin gave him an incredulous look.

" _Mer_ lin."

To Arthur's surprise, rather than digging in and becoming more belligerent, Merlin seemed to deflate. "Can't you just leave this alone?"

Arthur blinked and let his hurt show for once. "No. This isn't right, Merlin. Whatever reasons you think you have for letting this happen, they're wrong."

Merlin's face did something complicated and hopeless and he looked down at where he'd started picking at the sleeves of his tunic. "Please don't."

"Don't what?" Arthur took a tentative step toward Merlin held his hands out at his sides, harmless. "Just give me their names. I won't ask anything else, I promise. Just give me that and I'll take care of it."

Merlin was shaking his head before Arthur even finished speaking. "No. It's fine – you're overreacting."

"It's not fine."

"Stop!" It came out more as a sob than anything else.

Arthur dropped his hands and tried to breathe through the way his chest clenched. He'd never heard Merlin sound like that. He never wanted to hear it again. "Merlin, I swear to you, whatever they threatened, whatever they're holding over you, it doesn't matter. Whatever this plot is, you don't have to deal with it alone."

An hysterical sort of laugh bubbled out of Merlin's mouth and it was horrible to listen to. "You think there's a plot?"

At a loss, Arthur asked, "Isn't there? Why else…?" He trailed off and ignored the sinking feeling in his stomach. He stepped closer and risked taking hold of Merlin's arm even when Merlin cringed away from his hand. "What on earth could they have to hold over you if it's not some plot against the crown?"

Merlin wouldn't look up, and his pallor was becoming alarming. "Just leave it. Please leave it."

Again, Arthur replied, "No. I won't let this go on any longer. You are going to sit down and write me a list. If you can't tell me any more than their names, then I will get the rest of it from them directly. But either way, this ends now, Merlin."

The pace of Merlin's breathing increased and his eyes darted about as if looking for an escape route. Arthur tightened his grip on Merlin's arm. Eventually, Merlin's voice came weak and shaken. "You'll hate me."

Arthur shook his head. "No." He tried to convey his utter certainty of that. "Merlin, you haven't done anything wrong." Then he paused. "Have you?"

That had been the absolute wrong this to say, because he lost what little calm he'd managed to instill. Merlin let out an anxious peel of sound and yanked himself out of Arthur's grasp. Rather than retreating afterwards, though, he rounded on Arthur, and the fear warred with fury to make something awful out of the familiar lines of his face. "Are you jealous, is that it?"

Arthur's eyes went wide. "What? No!"

"I'm _your_ manservant, aren't I? Can't let anyone else touch your toys – what will you do, put them all in the stocks? Teach them a lesson?"

"Merlin – "

"If you wanted a taste, you could just ask." The tilt of his body firmly betrayed the sound of his voice. "Or does it offend you to get sloppy seconds?"

Arthur's temper snapped. "How dare you!"

"Oh, I see." Merlin sneered, but it was all wrong on his face. "Not good enough for you, am I? Just a serving boy, and not even a good one. I can send George up to you instead. I'm sure he's just as perfect at sucking cock as he is at everything else."

Something about that – the foulness, the wrongness of words like that coming out of Merlin's mouth – doused Arthur's temper like cold water on a hearth fire. He could see it, clear as day. Merlin baiting him, distracting him, waiting for Arthur to tell him to get out, to leave Camelot. Provoking him…why? What could be so bad that this was the better option?

Too shocked to do much else, Arthur waited long enough to see the veneer crack, to see Merlin's breathing turn wet and his eyes to gleaming shards, sharp as glass. The uncertainty came back, and then the despair, and then panic. Arthur watched it appear like billows of mud clouding the waters of a lake. At a loss, Arthur turned around and blinked at his breakfast. His favorite autumn foods, faultlessly taste-tested and verified safe, still steaming hot. The smell of it turned his stomach.

Behind him, bewildered and tremulous, Merlin called out, "Arthur?"

Arthur nodded and then picked up his long vest from the chair where he had folded it after returning to his room near dawn that morning.

"Where are you going?"

"To speak with Sir Caradoc."

A sudden scrambling erupted behind him, and Arthur was surprised to find himself already opening his door when Merlin's fingers seized at his arm. "No. Arthur, no. Please. _Please_ , I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that – you should put me in the stocks – "

Arthur plucked his fingers off and pushed them back into Merlin's chest. "No." He let Merlin go and held his hands out as if to indicate how he didn't want to touch him right then. "Stay here."

Merlin ignored him and rushed out the door on his heels. "Arthur – sire – this is my fault. You don't need to bother Sir Caradoc – I'll explain everything – "

"I don't think you will," Arthur replied bluntly.

That gave Merlin pause, but only just. He scrambled in front of Arthur and put his hands out. "Don't – don't, please. Arthur – I'm begging you – don't do this. _Please_ don't do this."

Arthur moved him aside again and continued down the stairs and into the colonnade that led to the training field. Caradoc should be there along with all of the other knights currently not on patrol or bed rest.

" _Arthur_!" Merlin's voice was sharp and panicked, pitched higher than usual. "Stop – _stop_! I'll tell you whatever you want to know, just don't do this."

Gwaine noticed them coming out onto the field and his face changed when he noticed Merlin hanging off of Arthur's arm and trying to drag him back. He dropped his guard and started jogging toward them. A moment later, Percival did the same, and Arthur realized abruptly that Merlin had gone silent and let him go. He glanced over his shoulder to find Merlin frozen several feet back, watching Gwaine and Percival hurrying toward them. Even as Arthur turned to reach for him, his mouth open to say something calming, the color drained from Merlin's face.

Arthur shook his head and stepped toward him. He could see the way that Merlin's muscles tensed, the sway of his body backwards, and the single movement of his foot that he made to brace himself. "Merlin – "

Too late. Merlin bolted, but not before Arthur saw the devastated expression on his face. He didn't understand why it was there, or what he was so terrified of, but he saw it just the same.

" _Merlin_!" Arthur spun around and pointed at Percival. "Detain Caradoc!"

Gwaine sprinted past them, entirely focused on Merlin, and though Percival looked mutinous for a moment, he redirected his anger at the aforementioned knight and turned around. Satisfied with that, Arthur took off after Gwaine; Merlin was already nearly out of sight.

Arthur never thought about it before, but Merlin was built for running. If he made it into the forest, they would lose him and waste precious time going back for supplies and horses to track him. It didn't even occur to Arthur not to track him down if need be; he had every intention of bringing Merlin back to Camelot because Merlin belonged in Camelot and this – this was not right.

Ahead of him, Gwaine swung around a corner, dodged a horse cart, and put on a fresh burst of speed as he cleared the portcullis at the southern gate. Arthur had a more difficult time of it and by the time he made it out, shouting at the guards to stay at their posts, all he could see was Gwaine disappearing down a deer track off of the main road. Arthur cursed under his breath and followed, his pulse beating in his ears and his mind stuck on a loop of Merlin calling him fat with a giant smile on his face, only half in jest as he stole half of Arthur's breakfast.

He heard a yelp up ahead, and then a horrible, hoarse wail that cut off abruptly. It sounded like Merlin, though he'd never heard such an animal noise come from his servant before. Fearing the worst, Arthur drew his sword and tried to put himself into the right mindset to fend off an attack. He couldn't remember if Gwaine had his sword on him or not, but surely he at least had a boot knife. Gwaine wasn't stupid, after all; even this close to Camelot, they weren't free of the threat of bandits, and somewhere out there, his sister still lived, entrenched in her hatred.

Arthur slowed as he approached where he thought Gwaine must be, sword held at the ready. His ears strained for any sound to alert him as to the situation, but it took several moments for him to pick out Gwaine's voice from the quiet that had fallen over the woods. The sound of harsh, gasped breathing followed, and Arthur eased his way through the brush to a small clearing shrouded in a deep layer of leaves and pine brush.

Gwaine had managed to bring Merlin to ground like prey and had twisted him up in some kind of wrestling hold. Merlin was pinned back against Gwaine's chest, his arms crossed in front of him and his wrists caught in Gwaine's tightly clenched fists. In spite of the solid hold, he was still kicking and fighting at the arms squeezed unyielding around his thin body while Gwaine simply rode it out and shushed at him the way stable hands calmed nervous horses.

Before Merlin could see his sword and get the wrong idea, Arthur propped it against the nearest tree and crouched down a bit. He remained just out of arm's reach and though it physically tore at something in his chest, he waited until Merlin succumbed to the breathlessness of his own panic and subsided, shivering against Gwaine's hold and sucking desperately for air enough to maintain consciousness.

"There now," Gwaine soothed. "Deep breaths, that's it. Nobody here is going to hurt you, yeah? You're alright. Breathe now, come on. See? Everything's good now. Deep breath, Merlin, come on." He spared a few fingers to thump Merlin's ribcage. "There you go. You're alright. Keep breathing."

Arthur watched, aware that speaking now would only make things worse. He knew that Merlin knew he was there because every time his eyes touched on Arthur's knee or his boot, Merlin jerked his face in the other direction and gasped a bit harder. He had never imagined anything like this – the thought that Merlin – sweet, silly Merlin with his stupid grins and his oblivious, ridiculous loyalty, and his ears – could be this utterly terrified. And worse, terrified of _Arthur_. Because he was, clearly. He didn't run from Caradoc, or from any of the nameless others who had been using and manipulating him. He had run from Arthur – from Arthur, Gwaine and Percival. His friends.

Once it seemed that Merlin had calmed enough to be rational again, Arthur moved closer, still low to the ground, and reached out to touch Merlin's ankle where it lay haphazard on the ground. Merlin jerked and grunted and Gwaine tightened his arms again until it passed. He looked like a stunned bird, dazed after flying into a window, sprawled with his limbs akimbo and his head twisted too far to one side in a pointless attempt to avoid what was going on around him. Arthur watched the uneven cadence of his chest as it stuttered with the effort of drawing breath, and met Gwaine's grim face before shuffling closer. "Merlin. It's alright. I promise, no one is going to harm you."

Gwaine nodded. "That's right, eh? It's just us, now. You know we'd do anything to keep you safe, yeah?"

Merlin shuddered a bit and seemed to rouse himself enough to let his gaze skitter along the edges of Arthur's shadow on the ground.

Arthur nodded and shuffled his knees closer. "Can you look at me? Merlin?"

At the gentle request, Merlin drew his legs in close to his body like a pill bug and Gwaine braced himself for more struggling. It didn't come though, and he gave Arthur a concerned look.

Without acknowledging Gwaine's worry, Arthur moved again, shifting his hand up to Merlin's and forcing his fingers through the tight knot of Merlin's fists. "Merlin, it's alright. I swear to you, on my crown – I will make this right. Do you understand? Just tell me their names and what they threatened you with. That's all you have to do." He shuffled up until his knees pressed against the outside of Merlin's thigh. "Come on, Merlin. You'll feel better afterwards. Just get it over with."

Arthur spared a thought for the possibility that Merlin himself had been enchanted with a spell to keep him from telling anything, which made a tiny kernel of rage bloom hot and sharp in his gut, but Merlin's lips moved soundlessly in response, for all that he clenched his eyes tightly shut.

Arthur shook his head. "I can't hear you."

Evidently, Gwaine had heard just fine, because his face went slack and then turned hollow. "I think... I think they threatened to tell you what he is."

It took a moment, mostly because his mind needed that long to push past the rush of something in his ears. He could only think of one way to interpret that, and it was horrible. Because it meant that there was no plot. There was no threat against Camelot or Arthur. The only thing anyone wanted from Merlin was to use him for a lark, and the only thing they needed to do to get that was threaten to tell Arthur about his magic. Merlin was doing this, allowing this violation of his person, out of the simple fear that Arthur would hate him on account of a secret that Arthur already knew.

Arthur could feel the shock and dismay in own face when he looked up at Gwaine, because he saw it there too. How had they failed to notice this fear in Merlin, how it ran so deep? How did they miss this, the utter lack of trust that they had instilled in him, that he would debase himself rather than just tell them that he had magic? What on earth had Merlin thought they would do, if _this_ were the better alternative?

Gwaine found his voice first, and he pressed his nose into Merlin's cheek. "God, I'm so sorry, lad." His arms, up until now still bunched hard in restraint, loosened into an embrace.

Merlin wasn't really looking at anything anymore, his respiration finally even if too shallow, but he twitched a bit at that. His fingers, gone limp in Arthur's grasp clenched and then released.

Arthur swallowed past the lump that tried to steal his voice and found Merlin watching him. Finally, he took a deep breath, and forced his words to come out steady. "We already know about the magic."

Nothing changed at first, but as the admission sunk in, and Merlin absorbed the full import of it, his face did something terrible and ugly, and took his breath with it.

Arthur reached out to keep him from looking away, because he didn't like any of what he could read in those too-sharp features. "I can never apologize enough for this, Merlin. This is my fault. I should have told you I knew, but I wanted you to tell me on your own, because I was – I was angry that you didn't trust me."

Merlin's eyes filled and he stopped trying to breathe through his nose, because he couldn't. "You knew? You _knew_?"

Arthur nodded and cupped at his face, but he didn't try to force Merlin to look at him. "I know why. I understand. You watched me execute people for sorcery. You saw me with my father, you saw Tom… I know that I didn't give you any reason to tell me. I know that, Merlin. I lifted the ban on magic, but I didn't give you any sort of opening. And that's _my_ fault. I wanted you to tell me so that I could feel like I'd earned that trust from you, but I haven't. I never did."

Merlin shook his head, his eyes unseeing as he blinked to clear them. He tensed up as if to rage at something, perhaps at Arthur, and the air crackled for a moment with the scent of old lightening and hair stood on end. But it faded as soon as it had come, and instead, Merlin just sank into himself and away from Gwaine, and pressed his face into the leaves so that he didn't have to share his tears with them.

* * *

The only thing Merlin asked on the walk back to the castle was how many people knew. Arthur thought he was asking about the situation – the threat and the things Merlin had been forced to do to avoid exposure – so he told Merlin about their very small group.

After a tense pause, Merlin clarified. "I meant my magic."

Arthur glanced aside at him and reached a hand out to steady him without thinking when he stumbled over something buried in the leaves. Merlin took no notice of the hand other than to put just enough distance between them that he was no longer easily within Arthur's reach. "I don't know," Arthur replied. "More than either of us would like, probably."

Merlin appeared to consider this, his face unreactive. "And you? How long have you known?"

Arthur had long since decided that he bore no fault for not telling Merlin what he knew, considering that Merlin never said anything either. But he still felt a twinge of guilt pulse deep in his gut. It made him hesitate, something he rarely did because of the weakness it implied. Hesitation, to delay the inevitable – not just tact, consideration or care for the phrasing of it.

Merlin's eyes sidled toward him without quite reaching Arthur's edges.

It seemed to Arthur that whatever answer he gave would be used in judgement, but of what, he couldn't tell. "Since Morgana's treachery. Since she took the throne and imprisoned my father. That's when I started to suspect."

Behind them, Gwaine remained silent, as if he hoped that remaining unobtrusive would spare him from telling Merlin that he's known since the moment they met.

Merlin paid the other man no notice and stated, his voice flat, "Nearly a decade then."

Arthur nodded, but it was not a decisive thing. "I only suspected then, Merlin. There were just…inconsistencies."

"What kind of inconsistencies?"

"Does it matter?" Arthur tossed his hand out and made a gesture to indicate the entirety of their situation. "It's done. It's not like you're free of any blame here – you've been lying to me this whole time."

No one spoke until they emerged from the deer track and back out onto the main cart road. Arthur had just begin to relax, thinking this conversation over for the time being, when Merlin just had to point out, "You would have had me executed."

And there it was, really. Because yes, at least in the beginning, and likely for years after, he probably would have. "I've learned since then." He sighed and grimaced at his hands, smeared with mud that he'd transferred to the hilt of his sword. "The army of the dead. Morgana took credit for stopping it, but after her treachery, it occurred to me that it would have been _her_ army. She had no reason to stop it – they were winning – and the only other person in the crypts with her was you."

Merlin looked up briefly, his eyes sharp and cutting like knives.

"You tried to tell me about her," Arthur said quietly. "In the throne room. I cut you off, and then my father was congratulating her. For your deed."

Arthur looked away to the left and tried to imagine what sort of fortitude it took for a man to keep silent while his enemy received accolades for their own betrayal, knowing that any attempt he made to reveal the truth would only make things worse. Morgana had been among them for months following that breach of the castle's defenses. And Merlin… She would have known that he knew. Did she know that he had magic? Is that why she never attacked him? Or _did_ she attack him, try to kill him, try to remove him so that she would have a clear shot at Arthur? Arthur could remember yelling at Merlin every time he disappeared for a few hours or days, believing that he'd been at the tavern because Merlin always popped back up exhausted, drawn, or otherwise looking like he'd been dragged through a gutter. How many of those disappearances were Morgana's doing? Had she ever seriously injured him? Had he been forced to face her alone every time, to recover and lick his wounds alone every time?

"I should have said something sooner, at least to tell you that I knew that you're the one who saved us. You deserved to be recognized for that." Arthur paused. "It took a bit longer for me to realize that it would have taken magic to counter her sorcery. And…yes," he admitted. He fought not to let the flush of embarrassment or shame heat his cheeks, but it did. "I almost had you arrested."

Merlin let out a soft breath, long and low, as if the confirmation at least were some kind of catharsis. "Thank you for your forbearance."

Arthur shook his head. "You shouldn't be thanking me for not doing something unjust. I realize now, what you've been doing for us. And that you did it the whole time knowing that if anyone found out, your only thanks would be the pyre or the headman's block. It didn't stop you, though. I'm not sure why you would protect us, knowing that, but I'm grateful. You're a better man than most." He paused, pursed his lips, and risked a look over at Merlin's unyielding posture, his studiously lowered eyes, shoulders tense and raised as if to ward off a blow, or contain one. "You didn't deserve this. To be made a fool of for your loyalty."

The change in mood was sudden and jolting. "It seems fitting to me, actually," Merlin snapped. "I've been a fool, apparently. May as well be made a fool of for it."

That roused Gwaine, finally, from his silent shadowing. "You're not a fool, Merlin."

Merlin didn't reply, but he did pick up the pace a bit, unsteady as he still was after all that had happened. The fatigue that weighed at him and drew his limbs clumsy seemed more pronounced than this single day should have accounted for, but his apparent bitterness was more alarming by far.

Any further opportunity for conversation stalled as they crossed the bridge and approached the south gate. Merlin fell into step behind Arthur and Gwaine, where a servant should be, and Arthur took a moment to grimace privately at that because it had been a very long time since he'd really considered Merlin to be a _servant_ , no matter his station or the chores he carried out each day. They rode side by side on hunts, and Arthur enjoyed the name calling and impertinence that he normally received each morning – it was freeing. Merlin even stole food right off of the king's breakfast plate, in plain sight and without remorse, for goodness' sake. He was the worst servant in the citadel only because at the end of the day, he wasn't really a servant at all. He never had been, no matter what Arthur had thought in the beginning, or what he told Merlin, or how he treated him.

Arthur warded off Leon's advance with a raised hand and a shake of his head and continued to the main courtyard with Merlin silent and cowed behind him. He could see Gaius wringing his hands where he stood on the main steps to the great hall, waiting and trying, no doubt, to figure out how bad the situation was. Gwen stood beside him, her hand on his arm as she spoke to him, but when she noticed the three of them enter the courtyard, she excused herself and hurried forward, her skirts held up to avoid tripping as she navigated the stairs.

"Arthur." She paused long enough to rest a gentle hand on his own rough, clenched ones, and then moved past him to Merlin. Her fingers reached out to touch his face the way she must have done a hundred times, friends that they were, but for the first time in Arthur's memory, Merlin ducked back, shoulder raised to block her, and refused to look at her, his face closed and his eyes downcast, shuttered. Gwen stilled and drew back, her hands folding over her stomach instead as she absorbed this rejection.

Arthur looked between them, but they were in the middle of the courtyard and out here, in public, he was the King – he could be nothing more. He motioned Gaius forward instead of saying anything and turned to Merlin. "You're to go with Gaius, and let him make sure you're alright."

Merlin's face twitched with that familiar mutinous streak that had once infuriated Arthur so much. But nothing came of it for once. "Yes, sire." He tilted his head in the barest sketch of a bow and headed for the castle. Arthur watched him raise an arm to block Gaius from touching him and then they both disappeared up the stairs and into the great hall.

At Arthur's side, Gwen closed her eyes, her face troubled and cast toward the ground. She took her moment and then straightened with a resolute breath. "Leon and Percival have a report ready, sire. They're waiting for you in the council chambers."

Arthur nodded. "You'll come with me." He gestured to Gwaine as well, who would have just barged in anyway, and then made his way into the castle.

* * *

The westering sun hung low in the sky by the time Arthur pushed open the door to his royal chambers, orange rays following him until he shut them out with a heavy sigh. The anteroom was cold, the hearth covered in old ash from the fire the evening before. Merlin usually cleared that out after Arthur left for his morning council session, but of course, this morning had gone differently. Arthur nudged at a pile of fresh kindling with his boot, then knelt and piled some of it onto the grate along with old bits of paper covered in Arthur's scribbled notes to burn for kindling and security, both.

He heard Gwen moving around behind the door in the other room, connecting the queen's chambers to his. The wardrobe opened, then silence until Gwen opened their connecting doors and shuffled through to Arthur's sitting room. She had removed her court dress and put on a simple lilac skirt with a light brown coat that hung to her knees. For all that she had put on the clothes of a peasant, she moved with the bearing of a noble, as she always had. Arthur could not possibly have mistaken her for anything else. He nodded to her and went back to scraping the flints together while she set out a wineskin and two goblets from Arthur's cupboard.

With his hands cupped around a bit of a spark to shield it, Arthur breathed some air toward it to make it flare with the words that also came out. "I will have the knights before me in the throne room to explain their conduct tomorrow at the second bell – all of them. Let those who participated in this confess before their peers and earn whatever censor they deserve for it. They are to arrive in formal regalia. You will see to it?"

"I'll send a steward first thing," Gwen confirmed. A pause and a rustle of shifting clothes, and then, "Should I summon Merlin as well?"

Arthur shook his head. "I'll collect him myself." A bit of flame finally licked up the edge of a page of grain figures that had since been copied out into the official ledgers. "I plan to arrive late. Let them stand there and stew for a while."

A bit of a snort sounded behind him – a delicate and completely proper snort, of course. "And shall I sit on my throne and frown at them in your absence?"

A smile eased its way onto Arthur's face along with the heat from the catching fire. "I give you leave to make them squirm all you like. You seem to enjoy doing that."

In his periphery, Gwen gave a delicate shrug of one shoulder. "I shall be sure to glare and say nothing at all the entire time, then."

Arthur scrubbed his hands on his leather breeches before pushing himself to his feet, the fire spreading strongly in the grate. "Far be it from me to deny you your pleasure."

Gwen nodded. "I stopped by to see Gaius on the way here. He gave Merlin something to help him sleep, so I wasn't able to speak to him. I told Gaius that Merlin is excused from his duties for as long as he likes."

"Merlin won't be pleased at being _handled_ like this."

"I know." Gwen smoothed her skirts over her knees and watched Arthur sit across from her. "Gaius is very upset. I had to tell him what's been happening, and why."

Arthur swallowed and reached for the wineskin. "I'm sorry that you had to be the one to inform him."

"It's probably for the best, really," Gwen said, looking up at him with a grim humor. "You would have bungled it and I'd have had to go in there anyway to fix it."

"Hey!" He grinned at her and filled a goblet for her before pouring the rest of the wine into his own. They sipped in silence for a while, and then Arthur said, "Things need to change. It's been long enough." They had spoken before, vague plans of what it might be like to openly consult on magic, to watch Merlin perform it. To have his charms and protections laid openly, to discuss how to handle threats and friendly magic use, and Morgana. He frowned at his wine before taking another sip. Merlin had seemed angry that morning after everything was said. It wasn't something Arthur was used to seeing. Merlin had flares of temper like anyone else, but the silent anger, the bitterness, the self-loathing when he'd called himself a fool… "Merlin believes that we have made a joke of him, that we have laughed behind his back about his magic, knowing how powerful he is and still…degrading him as a servant."

Gwen narrowed her eyes over the rim of her goblet. "There is nothing degrading about servitude."

"I didn't mean to imply that there was," Arthur replied. "But we did make a joke of him, intentional or not. I have, perhaps, been more unkind than I realized."

Gwen looked down briefly, her bottom lip caught in her teeth. "We have taken the only thing that he considers worth anything about himself, and made it a matter to laugh over. Merlin was born a peasant – he's been made aware of his lack of importance his whole life. Serving you… I don't think you realize how happy it made him. His magic was just something else he gave you; he didn't need your recognition for it. Knowing that he'd used it for _you_ … That was what made it special."

Arthur nodded. It was worse somehow, to be put that way.

"And they made it a weapon," Gwen continued. "They took that special thing that was just for you, and they hurt him with it. They used his fear of you, of your reaction, to bind him. To make sure that he couldn't defend himself from them, because if he did, you would know, and he wouldn't be able to use his magic to protect you anymore. I don't think it was about you hating him. It was knowing that you'd reject the only thing he had to give that was worth anything." She shook her head, the movement spreading to her upper body. "And all for nothing. To keep a secret that didn't even need to be kept."

"He's never lacked confidence before," Arthur protested.

Gwen tipped her head and gave him a pitying look. "Confidence isn't the same thing as believing that you have worth."

Arthur grimaced and poked at the divots worn into the surface of the table over the course of years. "I hardly know what I'm supposed to do about that."

"Nothing." Gwen smiled, but it was a sad thing. "You can't give him that. No one can."

Arthur sneered at the table for a moment, then gulped down the last of his wine and stood. "I should have run off to start a farm when I had the chance." He put the goblet on the sideboard, scrubbed at his hair for a moment, and then demanded, "Why can't I just train knights and fight Saxons and have a normal life like everyone else?"

"Because you're a good man?"

Arthur craned his neck to look past his own shoulder at his wife. "Am I?"

Gwen refused to answer; she merely cocked her head and gave him a discerning look. "Who all did you mean to take along to this secret farm of yours, anyway?"

Without hesitation, Arthur replied, "Merlin." Then he frowned. It was an old fancy, completely lacking any sense of serious intent, and yet whenever he'd imagined a simpler life, free of the kingship, the only person ever in that fantasy with him was Merlin. He shifted his gaze to find Gwen watching him with a tolerant expression. "Well, and you, of course."

Gwen's face betrayed how she knew better, but there was no judgement there. Simply acknowledgement, and a demand that Arthur admit it too.

"Fine," Arthur huffed. "It was just Merlin. Because someone needed to actually do the work and feed the chickens."

Gwen's eyebrows inched upwards. "Chickens?" She made a valiant effort not to laugh in his face. "You wanted to be a chicken farmer?"

Arthur glowered at her. "Shut up. You wanted to be a blacksmith."

"Yes, but I'm not the king," she pointed out, her voice fluttering a bit as she lost the battle against smiling. She let it run its course and fade, and then stood to approach him. She straightened his collar and adjusted the laces on his tunic, then pressed both of her palms flat over his chest. "He doesn't know how you feel about him, Arthur. You need to tell him."

Arthur let his face scrunch up before he retorted, "I don't feel anything about him. I mean, he's my friend, and he's a terrible swordsman, and his cooking is awful, and he's the most loyal, self-sacrificing idiot I've ever met, and I owe him my life several times over, but… We're men, Guinevere. We don't…sit around braiding each other's hair and telling each other how we _feel_."

Gwen gave him a doubtful look, as if she knew better, before retrieving his goblet from the sideboard and her own from where she had left it on the table.

Arthur glared at her retreating back. "Guinevere!"

"As you say, sire," she called sweetly. She placed the goblets on a tray near the door, where they would be collected later by whatever servant came to straighten up later.

Arthur let her come close enough and then snagged her about the waist. She went willingly into his arms and rested her cheek against his collarbone. Some of the indignation seeped out of him, and he found himself speaking without thought. "He's more than a brother to me. I don't know why, and I feel like I've been wasting every opportunity to have…something. I don't know what." He paused and rubbed his lips against Gwen's hair, pensive. "He looks at me like he's seeing something I can't. And I want… I want to be whatever he sees when he looks at me, but I don't know what it is." He sighed, disturbing several strands of Gwen's hair. "He called me the Once and Future King. Sometimes I think that however hard it was living up to my father's expectations, living up to Merlin's is worse. It's…frightening. His regard for me."

Gwen's arms threaded through his to rest around his waist. She squeezed him briefly, and for a moment, it felt like sadness, or letting go. "He loves you," she said.

They both knew that she didn't mean simple fealty. "I haven't done anything to earn that," Arthur mumbled. "I don't even have his trust, really." He breathed in the scent of her hair. "He has more than enough power – he could rule this kingdom himself, if he wanted to."

"He _doesn't_ want to."

"He would be good at it."

"No, he wouldn't be."

Arthur pulled back and gazed down. Gwen merely looked back, allowing him his fill and the privacy of his own thoughts. Finally, Arthur allowed, "Perhaps not." Merlin was one of the strongest men he knew. One of the kindest. Ruling a kingdom…it was a ruthless thing. It took the soul out of a man and made him do things that should not be forgivable. Merlin had doubtless done terrible things in defense of the kingdom, but at heart, he was a good man. A kind man. Ruling would crush him and ruin the best parts of him.

Gwen smiled then, as if she thought that Arthur was finally getting somewhere. "You should have something to eat before you retire. It's been a long day." She extricated herself from his embrace and placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. "I'll ring for a tray."

Arthur nodded and watched her go, his body chilled where her warmth had left him.

* * *

Arthur considered his offering carefully the next morning, walking through the corridors in the chill that lingered in the stone walls and floors of his castle. Gaius's rooms were easily accessible from the main courtyard, but not from other residential parts of the castle, so he had plenty of time to second guess himself before drawing up straight outside the door to knock. He didn't wait for an invitation to enter, because he didn't need to as king, but he did hesitate on the threshold. Near the center of the room, Merlin glanced up from his breakfast, eyed him a bit, and then went back to his porridge as if Arthur weren't even there. The insult rankled, but Arthur found himself at a loss as to how he should react to it, or if he should react at all.

"Sire." Gaius levered himself up from his bench, his own breakfast forgotten, and made a gesture to invite him inside. "I haven't released Merlin to his duties yet."

Arthur nodded. "That's not what I'm here for, exactly." He stepped over to the table, gratified that Merlin finally seemed to realize his impropriety and stood to meet him. "These are for you." He held out the garments he had folded over his arm. "I expect you dressed and ready in a candle mark."

Merlin blinked at him and then looked down at the clothing – nice clothing. Far better clothing than a servant should have, and for once, not Arthur's own old and worn cast-offs. After contemplating the soft, rich brown breeches and the grey tunic with purple embroidery, he turned a suspicious look on Arthur and folded his hands behind his back.

"Merlin!" Gaius stepped up behind Arthur and gave the clothing a deliberate look, his eyebrows severe.

"It's alright." Arthur raised a hand to gesture Gaius back, and addressed Merlin. "I had these tailored for you. You're to attend me at court."

Merlin's body shifted to one side, but only just. "I'm already dressed."

Arthur nodded. "I'll wait while you change." Again, he shook his arm to draw Merlin's eyes back to the clothing. "For gods' sakes, Merlin. They're clothes – they won't bite you."

"You bought me clothes," Merlin stated flatly.

He could hardly be blamed for his incredulity, and Arthur had expected something of the sort anyway. "Yes. What you're wearing isn't suitable."

Merlin sucked in a breath, and Arthur could see the retort form on his tongue before he seemed to find it pointless to bother. With far less grace than Arthur thought appropriate, considering the fine quality of his gift, Merlin plucked the garments from Arthur's arm and glowered all the way to his little tower room. The door would have slammed if it were made of sturdy enough stuff. Arthur let out a heavy breath and turned away to wait.

"I'm sorry, sire," Gaius offered, quiet enough to avoid Merlin overhearing. "He's not been himself lately."

"I understand, Gaius. There's no need to say anything more on it."

Gaius nodded, his hands folded as befit his station. Eventually, he said, "I understand that you have called the knights to court. May I inquire, sire, as to how you intend to proceed?"

Arthur studied the remains of their breakfast as if it could clarify things for him. "Yes. Sir Caradoc, at least, will apologize for his transgression in public. He seemed not to know that what he did was without Merlin's consent."

"How could he have not known?" Gaius demanded.

"There is some system in place," Arthur replied. "A code phrase, apparently. He claims that he thought it a means to maintain discretion." Arthur could feel his lip curl in disgust. "He was given it by Sir Reginald, who also claims ignorance of the matter."

Gaius shook his head, his hands now tucked into the sleeves of his robe. "I don't understand. What was the purpose?"

"Humiliation?" Arthur had had all night to ponder that question, and so far, that was best he had come up with.

Gaius seemed to find that explanation as inadequate as Arthur did. "But to what end?"

"Perhaps that's the end in itself," Arthur offered, fighting to keep the faint note of defeat from infiltrating his voice. "Merlin does have enemies. It could just be something…petty." The thought brought with it a wave of dissatisfaction. "I intend to learn the origin of it today. If it is one of my knights, there will be consequences."

This didn't seem to bring any comfort, but Gaius nodded anyway and subsided, murmuring, "Yes, sire."

Just when the silence began to edge into oppressive, Merlin emerged, still fiddling with the laces at the neck of the tunic. Gaius shuffled over and waved his hands away, then fixed them himself. Merlin let him and spent those few moments staring past him at Arthur with eyes like flint.

"Right, then." Arthur reached into his pocket for the last bit and tried to ignore how Merlin's initial reaction was to flinch when Arthur raised his hands toward him. They both froze, and then Arthur finished draping the chain and pendant over Merlin's head before stepping back to give it a critical eye.

Merlin looked down and tipped the pendant up to better study it. "What is this?"

"The royal seal."

"I can see that," Merlin snapped. There was more anger in it than Arthur had expected. "Why am I wearing it?"

"To make your status clear." Arthur tried not to shrink, but he could practically feel magic in the air betraying just how shallowly contained Merlin's temper was. "You are part of the royal household."

"I'm your servant," Merlin corrected, his words bitten sharp.

Arthur took a breath to calm himself, because all he wanted to do was yell and maybe put Merlin in his place as he was used to doing. Which would negate the entire point he was attempting to make. "You will serve in a different capacity from now on."

That shouldn't have been a catalyst for such fury, and it actually took Arthur a moment to realize that the sudden explosion of glass, followed by a rain of mostly aerosolized liquid to his right, was Merlin losing control of his temper, and by extension, his magic. Gaius retreated several steps, wary, but Arthur stood his ground. It was probably stupid of him, but he couldn't imagine Merlin causing him harm, no matter how angry he got. "And what capacity is that, _sire_?"

"Don't be more of an idiot than usual," Arthur snapped. "It's meant to protect you."

His voice low, Merlin repeated, "Protect me." He flared his nostrils, but the feeling in the air, like a thunder clap about to break, subsided. "Thank you, sire."

It sounded more like a curse than gratitude, but Arthur let it go. "Good. We're late, so let's go." He relaxed slightly when Merlin simply fell into step behind him, but it felt more like having a viper at his back than his, now former, manservant.

Gwaine met them at the door that led to the throne room and Arthur nodded to Gwen where she stood on the dais at the other side of the hall. Behind him, Merlin had gone still like prey in an otherwise bustling wood. Arthur spared him a glance but Merlin's gaze was hooded and pointed toward the floor. His face betrayed nothing.

Ignoring him for now, Arthur asked Gwaine, "Everyone is present?"

"Aye. Every one of them."

"Good. No one leaves this room until I'm satisfied."

Gwaine nodded and then took in Merlin's new look. His brow climbed a bit, but he refrained from comment.

Arthur turned and regarded Merlin too. He was surprised to find clear, pale eyes meeting his, uncertain. Arthur reached to grasp Merlin's shoulder, braced for a refusal of the touch. There was no rebuff, though; Merlin seemed to have realized that something was changing, and it had softened whatever hardness he'd girded himself with over the course of the past weeks. Arthur smiled, encouraging, and drew him forward to walk abreast with him through the door.

Merlin kept his head down as they traversed the room, drifting closer to Arthur than he normally did in public. To their left, Arthur noticed Sir Caradoc, his face pale and his features troubled as he watched them pass. Merlin didn't look at him, or at anyone else. When they reached the thrones, Merlin moved up behind Arthur's, and then stiffened when Arthur pulled him forward, next to him, and nodded at the spot beside him throne, making it clear where he wanted Merlin to stand. With obvious unease, Merlin did as Arthur bade, but his posture angled off to the side as if ready to retreat at the first indication that whatever Arthur had planned, it was over, and Merlin should return to where he belonged.

Arthur put the awkwardness out of his mind for the time being and sat. To his left, Guinevere did the same. Merlin sidled back a bit but Arthur let him. He was glad of the overcast morning outside the tall windows that lit the room because it gave him a plausible excuse when he twisted toward Merlin and said, "Light the candelabras for us, will you?"

Whatever Merlin had expected, it certainly wasn't that. He blinked a few times beneath the crease of his brow and then moved toward the stairs to leave the dais.

Arthur put his arm out to stop him. "Not like that."

Several moments passed and Merlin stared at him – unwilling, probably, to take that as Arthur meant it.

Taking mercy on him, Arthur clarified. "From here. Use your magic."

The assembled knights stirred in the chamber before them, and Gwen smirked out of the side of her mouth. Merlin, however, just stood there, his eyes widening as he realized what Arthur was doing.

"Surely it's not that difficult," Arthur drawled, inclining his head pointedly at the room, and by extension, the chandeliers and candelabras placed throughout.

Merlin's eyes followed the line of Arthur's fingers, and then he peered out at the knights, several of whom were gaping back at them both and trying not to. Merlin drew a sharp breath and tripped closer to Arthur. "Sire – "

"Show them, Merlin." Arthur tried to give him a kind look, something encouraging, but Merlin was staring elsewhere again. Softly, so that it wouldn't carry, Arthur said, "Go on. Let them see what kind of fire they played with."

It didn't have quite the desired effect; Arthur had hoped for vindication or even an angry sort of release in the freedom to make it clear that Merlin could have crushed any one of them simply for the wanting of it, and didn't. Instead, Merlin's feet, booted in soft, old leather out of place with the richness of the clothes that Arthur had given him that morning, slid carefully back to where Arthur had told him to stand. Candle flames flared softly out across the hall with a rush of sweet wind and the hair-raising scent of magic, like old lightning. Merlin sighed as it left him, but he made no other indication that the act had meant anything to him. Beside them, Gwen's lips parted on a delighted smile and she spared some of it for Arthur in turn.

Arthur nodded and let his own lips curl for a brief moment in acknowledgement of everything she didn't say. Out in the rest of the hall, several knights had drawn toward the center of the room with nervous fingers straying to the hilts of their swords. Merlin paid them no mind, but he had slipped further back toward his usual place behind Arthur as if he couldn't help it.

"Well," Arthur announced. His voice echoed in the silence. "That's better, isn't it." Several pairs of eyes goggled at him from the main floor. Arthur sought out one pair in particular and hardened. "Sir Caradoc. I believe you have something to say."

Carodoc bobbed his head a few times, still stunned as he realized the implications of what Merlin had just done. Then he fortified himself and stepped forward. He inclined his head to Arthur and to Gwen, and then he faced Merlin, who had managed not to disappear completely behind Arthur. Caradoc opened his mouth, but stopped abruptly and looked to Arthur for some sort of guidance.

Gwen saved Arthur from simply staring back, oblivious to what the problem was, and told Caradoc, "You may address him as _my lord_."

Merlin choked on nothing, and Caradoc turned quickly back to do as instructed. "My lord Merlin." He lost his breath, regrouped, and elected to go down on one knee, eyes on the floor. "My lord, I offer my humblest apologies for my trespasses. I did not…" He cleared his throat and then kept going. "I failed to be certain of my welcome, and I perpetrated a worse crime against you by following through where I had no right. Please forgive me. It was never my intention to cause harm, and I deeply regret the shame that I have brought to us both. It will not happen again."

Arthur nodded and twisted around to look at Merlin. "Are you satisfied, or do you demand redress?"

"I…what?" Merlin's voice came out pitchy enough that Arthur wondered if he ought to get him a chair before he passed out.

Patient only because he knew that Merlin was completely out his element, Arthur asked, "Do you consider his apology sufficient?"

Merlin's mouth worked for a time without sound, and then he nodded, but it looked frantic, as if he simply wanted whatever was happening to end so that he could disappear somewhere.

Arthur nodded and faced forward again. "Very well. Sir Caradoc, let this serve as a lesson to be remembered well."

"Yes, sire. My lord." Caradoc eyed Merlin when he said it, but the wariness was not born of disrespect. On the contrary, he appeared to understand exactly what Arthur had wanted him to grasp by making a show of Merlin's magic: the balance of power in the room – that he had been allowed to commit his trespass, and was only now still standing, by Merlin's grace.

Arthur addressed Caradoc again. "You told Sir Leon that you were given the pass phrase by Sir Reginald. Is that correct?"

Still kneeling, Sir Caradoc replied, "Yes, sire."

Said Sir Reginald was very obviously turning a rather interesting shade of pale where he stood in the midst of a widening circle of knights, who were carefully distancing themselves from his person.

Arthur ignored everyone else. "And are you aware of others who have used it?"

Caradoc turned his head enough to catch sight of several others fanned out behind him, and swallowed. "I overheard Sir Bleoberis speak of it to Sir Alymere."

Arthur nodded. "You may step away. Sir Bleoberis, approach."

"Sire, this isn't necessary."

Arthur craned his neck to look at Merlin where he seemed to be shielding himself with the back of Arthur's chair. "Merlin, the knights of my realm have wronged a member of my household. Their dishonor touches on me – their conduct is a direct insult to my crown."

Merlin made an effort to breathe evenly, but he was clearly losing to his anxiety. "I'm not part of your household." He held out the royal seal that dangled from the chain around his neck. "This doesn't make me anything more than a servant."

Out on the main floor, the assembled knights shifted about, but no one spoke or broke rank. Sir Bleoberis paused at the bottom of the stairs to the dais and shifted, uneasy. Arthur drew a breath against Merlin's words, because he understood entirely. If Merlin were any other man, he would be correct. What he said only made perfect sense. With care to be very deliberate about it, Arthur said, "I know I didn't kill the great dragon, Merlin."

Merlin started, and Arthur heard his throat click audibly.

"I've seen you call on him since then, in the fields beyond the walls. He obeys you. And the wyverns at the Fisher King's keep – Gwaine didn't kill them or chase them off when they came at me. You did."

His voice thick with something that shaded toward panic, Merlin replied, "Arthur – sire – "

"That means that your father was a lord, does it not?" Arthur pressed.

Gwen put a hand on Arthur's forearm. "Arthur, that's enough."

But it needed to be said, so Arthur gripped her hand gently to quiet her and finished, "A dragonlord. And now you are."

Breath like tattered ship sails was the only reply that Merlin made, but it was enough.

Arthur angled himself to the side, because on this part, he was less certain. He only had the evidence of timing and circumstance to guide him. "Balinor?"

Merlin flinched.

"You are noble in your own right," Arthur told him. "And I will be offering my apologies as well, but only after this business is concluded."

Merlin made no further argument, and while the silence was troubling, Arthur did not want to expose him any further in front of the court like this. He turned his attention back to Bleoberis instead. "I believe you were about to say something." To his credit, Bleoberis appeared to want very badly to revisit his last meal.

It went on like that through eleven formal apologies, a lot of subdued, one-word replies from Merlin, and quite a bit more prompting and exasperated sighing than Arthur was accustomed to doing. When they reached Sir Robert de Boron, though, Arthur waited for an apology that never came. Instead, Robert addressed Arthur directly. "Sire, I am certain that Merlin will tell you that I did nothing against him."

Arthur glanced back, but Merlin didn't appear to be paying attention anymore. "Merlin, is this true?"

Merlin's arms jerked where he held them tensed with his hands behind him. His voice faint, he asked, "What?"

The need to repeat himself multiple times to keep Merlin's focus was starting to wear thin, but Arthur forced himself to maintain his equanimity. "Did Sir Robert commit any trespass against you?"

"No." Merlin shook his head to back that up and glanced at Sir Robert without really seeming to see much.

Arthur frowned but turned back to Sir Robert. "I will forgive your lack of respect for Merlin's station – " Merlin's wince was sudden and audible – "but you will explain, then, why you have been named by your peers, and if I find your explanation inadequate, there will be consequences."

Sir Robert glared at the man behind Arthur's throne, but he made no comment on his obvious disgust for the situation. "I believe that I am implicated due to the misconduct of my squire. The boy, Arun, harbors some kind of vendetta against your ser… my lord Merlin." He grit the proper address out through clenched teeth, but he did manage it.

Arthur gave him a dubious look. "Your squire."

Gwen leaned toward him and said, "Arun was Sir Mordred's squire first."

"Mordred and Merlin were friendly, weren't they? And Mordred was a druid." Arthur turned to look at Merlin, and then had to fish him out from behind the throne by the hem of his nice new tunic. "Merlin, did Mordred have some kind of grudge against you?"

"Maybe?" Merlin's knees locked to keep himself still.

Arthur grimaced and let him go, but Gwen was giving Merlin worried looks. With a gesture at Gwaine, Arthur ordered, "Find Arun and bring him here to speak for himself."

Gwaine nodded and made his exit, but not before also glancing in concern at Merlin.

Again, Gwen leaned close, her voice low to keep it from carrying. "Arthur, maybe that's enough for today." Her eyes flickered to Merlin and back. "It's a lot to deal with at once."

Arthur tried not to be obvious when he also sought to assess Merlin's state of mind, but he couldn't miss the clench of his abdomen at the miserable if slightly vacant look on Merlin's face. "I'll call a recess," he granted, and Gwen appeared relieved not to have to argue the point.

The contingent of knights escaped the throne room with perhaps more haste than propriety could excuse, but it satisfied something in Arthur to see them so discomfited. Even if Merlin had been genuinely willing toward any of their advances, it would still have been abuse of their stations to have a servant like that where, in spite of custom and law, one might not feel free to refuse. Arthur only stood once the last of his knights turned into the hallway out of sight, and managed to get Merlin stumbling out the servant's door where Gwen waited with a gentle look on her face.

Merlin merely stood there in the corridor for a moment, and then he turned hurt eyes on Arthur. "Why did you do that?"

Arthur wanted to reply that Merlin deserved this – to be recognized and treated with the respect he was due – but seeing the look on Merlin's face, suddenly, Arthur wasn't sure anymore. So instead, he replied, "They need to learn not to take liberties. To be above reproach. Their conduct toward you disgraced them."

Merlin's face did something complicated and the space around his mouth crumpled. "So I am simply the tool you use to blunt their egos?"

"You are the man they have wronged," Arthur corrected, "and to whom they owe a debt for their pardon."

Merlin looked down and Arthur noticed how he fiddled for a moment with the pendant bearing Arthur's seal before he seemed to realize what he was doing. Eventually, he lifted it away from his chest and slipped the chain over his head. It would have been easy to refuse him if he had not looked at Arthur when he held the pendant out to him, but Merlin did look at him. "Clearly, I'm not. Since it's _your_ honor, and _your_ crown, and _your_ knights and their reflection on _you_ that you keep talking about." He gave the pendant a pointed look where he offered it up between them. "I didn't ask for this. I appreciate the gesture, but I can't be your weapon."

Arthur gave him an incredulous look. "When did I ever imply that you were my _weapon_?"

"When you used me to put fear in them." Merlin's gaze fell, and he pressed the pendant close enough that Arthur had to either take it or let it slide off of his chest when Merlin let it go. "I'm sorry, Arthur. I can't do this." He stepped back and shook his head, as if to force himself into some honesty that he wasn't entirely comfortable with. "I don't want to do this." He nodded to himself that time, a sad thing, and then turned and walked away.

* * *

It was a good thing that this Arun boy appeared to be the origin of the whole sordid matter, because Arthur would have hated to waste his positively foul mood on an innocent. The boy said nothing to explain or defend himself and had stood before Arthur with barely contained contempt in his downturned gaze, the deference of which seemed far more an insult or dismissal of Arthur than anything else. Even Sir Robert, who stood with him as patron, let the guards take the boy to the dungeon with little more than a disgusted word. Arun's conduct reflected on him, after all. If the boy had brought dishonor to himself through his conduct, than that would stain Robert by association for some time to come.

The boy's silence bothered Arthur more than anything else. It would have made sense for Arun to rail about wrongs committed to justify what he'd done, or end games, or even to protest his innocence, but he didn't. The whole thing felt unresolved because of it, and it made Arthur uneasy, not knowing what motivation there was for such a cruelty. It made him itch, unable to tell if there really something more to it, something deeper that remained to be discovered, a danger that he had yet to avert.

Once he'd sent the boy to the dungeon to await his judgement, Arthur retreated to his chambers to remove the trappings of royalty that he had covered himself with. There were times when he felt like a pretender to the throne, no matter that he had been raised to occupy it and knew no other life. A king was supposed to be perfect, to always have the best judgement and make the right, just decisions. He knew that his father had been wrong on many occasions, like any man, and yet Arthur still found moments of uncertainty in himself where he felt that he had failed Uther or the crown, or both. And he didn't have the knowledge or wisdom to understand how. His father had never doubted himself, but in many ways, that had been Uther's greatest fault. Arthur knew that he must learn from that in order to avoid the same fate, but even with the examples of people like Guinevere and Merlin by his side, it was difficult for him sometimes to know how to do that. They seemed to think so many things obvious. Arthur was aware enough to know that to him, they were not – he had not been raised to see the same kind of value in people that Merlin and Gwen saw by default. But they didn't always realize that they needed to explain certain kinds of things, and Arthur didn't always realize that there was a question he was supposed to have asked. Future kings weren't raised to question peasants.

Arthur set his crown on his desk and twisted it so that the jewels caught the light shining in brilliant shafts through the window. Merlin never let it tarnish or dull. Arthur had watched him hundreds of times, gently cleaning it with his cloths and oils and brushes, and polishing the gilt filigrees until every seam and swirl mirrored the light from the candles he worked by. It may have been easier to look at if Merlin would just let it shine less brightly.

The bustle of castle life seemed to slow down most days just after the noon hour, when morning training and council sessions closed and the servants took time to have their noon meal or relax before the rush of supper and sunset. Arthur didn't encounter anyone when he left his chambers, clad now in soft leather breeches and an old, warm tunic. He made his way first to Gaius's chamber, but they were empty of both physician and apprentice, so he wandered up to the battlements in hopes of finding Merlin. The battlements were Arthur's brooding place, though; it occurred to him abruptly that he had no idea where Merlin went when he needed to think or be alone. It felt like an oversight now, that he knew so little about his closest servant and friend. Somehow, the idea that Merlin might have a life outside of him had never crossed his mind. It was another one of those perhaps obvious questions that he had never thought to ask.

Thankfully, Merlin was well known in the citadel, and Arthur was able to trail him through sentries who had seen him pass earlier in the day. He descended into the dungeons, puzzled, and would have thought that Merlin might have wanted to confront Arun if it weren't for the fact that he'd passed through well before Arun's actual arrest in the throne room. Arthur stood for a moment near several siege tunnel entrances and tried not to worry that Merlin had run again. He managed to pick out fresh boot prints leading deeper into the keep, though – the creased and uneven track of Merlin's signature old soles. They probably leaked something terrible in the winter. Arthur plucked a torch from its holder on the wall and followed the trail down through several passages that clearly weren't used anymore, though he did notice how the layers of prints from old to new were all Merlin's. Evidently, his servant came down here often. Arthur wondered why; there was little to see in these old corridors, especially after the carved tunnels gave way to a natural cave of dark, rough stone.

Arthur realized later than he should have that he was in the old dragon keep. The last time he had been down here, he and Morgana had been children daring each other to throw stones at the great dragon's scaled hide. They hadn't made it all of the way to the cavern where it was chained, though; there had been a rock fall, likely intentionally brought down by Arthur's father, and they had not been able to pass. The rubble had long since been cleared, and Arthur wondered if that were Merlin's doing or someone else's. He also spared a thought for who had released the dragon in the first place, but he had old suspicions on that count, and he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to know anymore.

The cave tunnel ended in a massive cavern, the floor dropping out from a ledge at the tunnel opening. Arthur stared out into the darkness. A faint scent of the beast lingered, heavy with old lightening. Either the beast's magic had soaked into the space over the span of decades, or Merlin's had. Why Merlin would have gone to the trouble of putting magic into the place, though, when the dragon no longer inhabited it, eluded him. It occurred to him that the beast may still live here, using it as a den close to the dragonlord who commanded it now, but it felt abandoned. There was no impression that a breathing being called this place home.

Arthur turned in a small circle, torch held out for light, and eventually noticed the large, rough steps leading down to his left. They were more steppes than steps, large and rough and taller than the average man's stride, but he navigated them easily enough, hopping down with one hand on the rock face for balance. Broken links of chain lay toward the bottom, each ring large enough that a man could have laid down inside of one. Arthur climbed over them and then stopped, because he didn't know where to go now. The last thing he needed to do was get lost in a labyrinth right underneath his own castle. Merlin would laugh at him until his ears turned red.

"Merlin?" Arthur took a few more steps into the cavern and stopped to listen. The darkness felt oppressive and he imagined that he could feel the weight of the citadel above him. "I know you're down here." He didn't know that for certain. " _Mer_ lin." He tried to read his servant's tread in the ground again, but the rock was too hard down at the bottom of the vaulted space. He thought he could make out signs of passage in scraped rock and bits of stone, though, so he ventured forward and caught himself hard when he slipped. The dampness of the earthen air had made the jagged ground slick. "If I break a leg down here, I'm blaming you."

"You're the one who came down here."

Arthur twisted a bit and held the torch higher. He could make out a path now leading off to the right, toward the center of the cavern. Carefully, he picked his way up a small ridge and peered down into a hollow. The scent of dragon was stronger here and he examined the shallow bowl worn smooth into the rock. This must have been the dragon's den, where it slept. Arthur picked his way around until he found a safe way in and slid down the other side.

Merlin sat leaning against a small outcropping, his back to Arthur, with only his head visible. His hair stood on end, catching the torchlight in spikes, as if he'd been running his hands through it or scrunching it up in his fists. Arthur found a place to prop the torch between some rocks where it wouldn't fall over, and then made his way over. It took him a moment to realize that the uneven lumps around them in the bowl weren't rock but piles of supplies. Some old horse blankets, a couple of trinkets, a sack or two of porridge grains, and a basket of cold-stored root vegetables. Candles had been melted into indents in the rocks, unlit, and a few extras sat in a pile beside some old hay spread out as if to make a crude bed.

Arthur looked at all of it for a moment, and then turned to regard the top of Merlin's bowed head. "I know you don't actually live down here," he pointed out unnecessarily.

Merlin glanced up long enough to glare at him, and Arthur noticed the pale sheen to his face before he ducked it again toward his drawn up knees.

"Any particular reason you made a camp down here?" Arthur scuffed around for a moment and then sat down within arm's reach, though not touching. "Seems stupid to plan to hide right underneath us if you ever had to run."

"You'd never have looked for me here."

Arthur turned enough to be able to see him in his periphery.

"I didn't want to go too far."

"You would have stayed right here and kept on protecting us even if I'd called for your arrest." Arthur very deliberately did not make it a question. "Even if I really did end up hating you for your magic, you would have done that."

Merlin lifted one shoulder and seemed to lean away a bit. "It's my destiny."

Arthur scoffed. "What does that even mean?"

"I don't expect you to understand."

"I _want_ to," Arthur told him. His voice had gentled of its own accord. "I don't understand you, Merlin. Anyone else with half a brain would have used your position to bring Camelot down."

"I'm an idiot, remember?"

"You're really not."

They ended up staring at each other for a moment, and then Merlin looked down again. "Where else was I supposed to go, then?"

Arthur flapped a hand into the darkness. "I don't know, home?"

Merlin gave him an unkind look. "Camelot is my home."

"Ealdor, I mean. It's outside of Camelot's borders, and your mother – "

"The border didn't stop your father."

The rest of Arthur's breath left him in silence. Finally, he merely said, "I know. But Merlin – "

"I wouldn't put her in danger like that."

Arthur nodded and again let his lungs empty without finishing his sentence. "Is that what happened with Balinor, then?" Merlin didn't need to answer; the silence did that for him. "How old were you when he left?"

For a while, it seemed that Merlin wouldn't answer, but then he said, "It was before I was born. He left to protect my mother, so that Uther wouldn't hurt her too."

Arthur blinked and asked, "He left your mother with child? Why didn't you go with him?"

Merlin sighed. "He didn't know she was with child. He thought he was leaving her behind to have a better life without him."

Arthur shook his head. "So…you never knew him? You didn't…" A rather horrible thought took up residence behind his breastbone. "Merlin, that wasn't first time you met him, was it?" They both knew that he was referring to the quest to find a dragonlord to save Camelot.

"Gaius told me who he was just before we left. I didn't even know his name before that; mum wouldn't speak of him."

A distant dripping of water echoed through the cavern, and Arthur closed his eyes briefly. "I didn't even let you bury him." He had made Merlin leave his father's body where it fell so that they could make it back to Camelot by nightfall.

"You didn't know."

Arthur shook his head. "Did you go back for him?"

Again, it seemed that Merlin wouldn't answer, but his voice came soft in that manner of a man desperately grasping his composure. "The animals had already gotten to him. There wasn't anything left."

Neither of them said anything for a while after that. Arthur remembered how Merlin had cried over the body. It had seemed so out of place to Arthur, this grief for a man they didn't know, who had been mostly hostile to them from the start. At the time, he had assumed that Merlin's tears were out of fear or worry for his friends back in Camelot, or even out of a sense of failure at being the reason Balinor had stepped in front of a sword in the first place, destroying their best hope to stop the dragon's attacks.

Arthur drew a shaky breath, intending to apologize, but Merlin beat him to it and snapped, "Don't."

Though he didn't want to, Arthur subsided. He didn't understand how Merlin could still be so loyal to him after all of the hurts he'd suffered at the hands of Pendragons – how the losses and fear of discovery had never poisoned him as it had so many others with fewer grievances to call on than what Merlin had collected. Rather than try to address that, Arthur reached into his pocket and fished out the pendant that Merlin had rejected. His fingers traced the crest of his house, the simple shape of a dragon raised in gold.

When Arthur looked up, resolute, it was to find Merlin looking at him with wary eyes. He was still wearing the fine clothes that Arthur had given him, now dirty and smudged with grit and damp. Arthur could still see hints of the boy who had wandered into Camelot so many years ago, a gangly thing with a sharp frame and ridiculous ears. He had filled out since then, grown into his bones and hardened in ways that Arthur didn't like all that much. He was aware that Merlin had been unhappy for longer than the situation with Arun. He had gone quiet months ago, just before the encounter with the judgement of the Disir. The teasing had dried up for long stretches, and there were times when Arthur had been certain that Merlin was just tired. Of everything. There had been weariness in him too often to be overlooked, the kind that came after long years of battle with no respite. Arthur wondered if there were times when he had been at risk of losing Merlin entirely, if he had ever tested that good nature too far, pushed him just a little bit too hard, unaware of how close Merlin might have been to giving up on Camelot – to giving up on him. Had Merlin ever considered that his allegiances might be misplaced? Had he regretted the side that he chose? Arthur couldn't much blame him if he had.

As if he knew what Arthur was thinking, as if the ideas were written on his face in ink, Merlin smiled. It was a small, sad thing, but there was only kindness in it. "I'm loyal to you," he said. "Always."

" _Why_?" The word tore itself from Arthur's throat before he realized it was there.

Merlin shrugged. "It's what I'm for."

Arthur shook his head, the movement violent and angry. "No! You've told me before that I'm destined for this, being a great king – "

"Because you are."

" – and that you're destined to be with me while I do it – "

"I am."

" – but you're _not_. You could have anything, Merlin. I don't know where you get these idiotic ideas. Sometimes, I think you're completely deluded."

Merlin was smiling again, a genuine one by the sound of his voice. "I probably am. I mean, you're such a prat and all."

" _Mer_ lin!" Arthur rubbed at the possibly permanent furrow between his eyebrows, the chain of the stupid pendant dangling in his face as he did. "What do you _want_?" The helpless quality of it, like a plea, grated on Arthur's nerves, but he needed to know. "No more of this ridiculous destiny talk – it doesn't mean a damn thing to me, and I don't know why you're so bent on it anyway. I'm not some great, legendary king – I can barely hang onto the throne some days, and I'm not _good_. You know what I've done. You know I've killed innocents; you've seen me do it. I've done the wrong things, time and again, and I've failed more times than I can count, made the wrong decisions, trusted the wrong people – "

"You've learned from those mistakes."

"I've failed _you_!" he finally snapped. The silence that followed pounded on Arthur's eardrums like war. Quieter now, more fragile, Arthur said, "Look at what I've done to you."

Merlin's breathing betrayed his shock even if his words and voice did not. "You didn't do anything to me, Arthur. I let them." He paused. "I should have trusted you."

Arthur shook his head. "You were too afraid of me. I could have prevented this."

"Maybe it had to happen this way," Merlin offered.

"No." Arthur shook his head and made a point of meeting Merlin's troubled gaze. "You deserve better than this. Merlin…" He glanced down. "What they took from you," – _Innocence, the first times, the wonder of it, discovery and soft sighs and blushes_ – "I can't give it back. I can't fix it. It's just…" Arthur flicked his fingers into the darkness. "…gone now."

Merlin did him the courtesy, at least, of not trying to contradict him again. "I don't blame you for that. I don't even blame them – they didn't know either."

And wasn't that just like Merlin? Arthur nodded, because he acknowledged that Merlin believed that right now, and it might even be true. Instead, Arthur frowned at the pendant still trapped, fiddling in his restless fingers. He didn't like the implications of this cavern, that Merlin had planned for a time when Arthur rejected him, sent him away or drove him out, and had laid in supplies for it so that when the moment came, he could stay, even if that meant hiding in a cave. Arthur frowned. In a cave, like his father before him, living wild and alone due to the mistakes and betrayals of a Pendragon. There were dozens of things that Arthur could not fix or undo, or ever make up for, but this wasn't one of them.

Arthur shifted up to sit on his knees and faced Merlin, who drew back only enough that the movement couldn't have been mistaken for what it was. Arthur ignored it and held out the pendant. "I went about this poorly. I assumed…a lot. I didn't think about what you wanted." He gestured with the pendant and Merlin spared a glance for it before meeting Arthur's gaze again, his face blank. "I want you to be recognized for what you've done. I don't want you to have to hide anymore, or fear what might happen if you slip up. And I want… My father took yours away from you. I can't give him back – it's too late for anything like that. But I can give you a place in my household. You should be a brother to me, and have a place properly at my side. Not behind me, not scrubbing my floors or pretending that I'm not only still alive because of you. But that's not my choice, so I'm asking you, this time. Please. It would be an honor to have you accept."

Merlin shifted, still sitting at a right angle to Arthur, but he uncrossed his arms and let one of his knees fall, his posture less self-protective now, less closed. "I meant it before. I can't be your weapon. I know that my magic isn't good for much else, but I won't…" He took a shaky breath and admitted, "I can't say no to you. If you asked me, I would. I would do anything for you. I'd raze an army to the ground for you if you asked, but... I don't want to be a monster. But I would. If you asked."

This belief that his magic was only good for harming others wasn't something that Arthur knew how to address, so he let it pass. But he would think about it, and he would have to come back to it at some point. Because Merlin was kind and good, and the idea that his magic wasn't the same was rubbish. It was a tool, like any other. And if he had only ever used it to fight – to hurt and kill in Arthur's name – then it was because he'd never had the opportunity to use it for anything else. "I will give you my word that I won't ask for monstrosities, if that's what you need. And I'll command you to hold me to that promise on pain of death. I know the allure of power. We all know how it can twist and corrupt even the best men. Or the best women." Morgana's name remained unspoken. "But I'm not asking for your magic. I'm asking you to be family to me."

"If you knew what I've done…" Merlin whispered. "You wouldn't ask."

"We've all done terrible things in the name of Camelot," Arthur allowed. "But we've done good too."

Merlin shook his head and Arthur watched his eyes shine wet in the torchlight before he scrubbed a fine embroidered sleeve across his face. "No. Arthur, I've… I've hurt people. People you loved."

"And I have no doubt that you had no better choice at the time." Arthur shuffled closer on his knees, and the irony of it – _You need to learn to walk on your knees_ – struck him hard in the chest. What a lesson to learn, and how. "Merlin, I know that you've done things you regret, but I can't believe that there was ever any malice in you. I want you at my side. I trust you to be there. I _know_ you. Please accept."

But Merlin's posture closed up again, his knees drawing close to his chest and his arms an unyielding band around his calves. He was shaking his head, the tears leaving tracks unhindered on his cheeks. "You don't know."

"Merlin." Arthur finally came close enough to touch him and sat back on his heels. Once he was sure that Merlin wouldn't flinch from him, he pried one of those long, thin hands away from the other and deposited the pendant in it. Merlin's fingers curled over it and Arthur encased them within both of his own hands. "I think that by now, I can tell what kind of man you are. And whatever you've done, whatever wrongs you think you've committed, I think – I _know_ – that you've suffered enough for them. It's over. There's nothing left to atone for."

Merlin's chest spasmed and he kept shaking his head, but it was merely surrender at that point. Arthur let him curl into himself but he didn't let go of Merlin's hand and he didn't try to stop the flow of whatever grief or guilt Merlin needed to release. Arthur listened to the wet breathing and the softly choked inhalations because that was his due – to know what it looked like for a king to make a good man bring himself low.

When Merlin finally quieted, his breath a rasp smothered in his own knees, Arthur untangled one of his hands and cupped the top of Merlin's head with it. "I'm sorry, more than you'll ever know. I'm sorry that it came to this, that you couldn't come to me for help. I'm sorry that you had to fight alone for so long, and I'm sorry that you kept thinking you were alone even after we knew." Arthur forced himself not to shed any tears of his own because he didn't deserve to grieve for his own wrongdoings and failings, and the failure to protect the one man who had never wavered from his side, not even when he should have. But the light of the torch still blurred into streaks for a moment across his vision. "I'm sorry for not listening to you every time you tried to warn me that I had missed something. For not trusting you, because I knew better a long time ago and I still disregarded you." He leaned down a bit, just enough to press his lips against the back of his own hand where it rested on Merlin's head. "And I'm sorry for what my own knights took from you. I should have stopped them. I should have done better for you. I will bear the shame and regret for that failure until the day I die, Merlin - for making you fear me so much that you would rather accept such a violation than risk my knowing what you are. I will do everything it takes to earn your trust back. Everything. I swear it."

Merlin's body heaved for a moment, and then he finally tipped against Arthur as if he simply couldn't help it. Arthur let him, his hands still in the same places, one curled over Merlin's fist and the other cradling his head, pressing him into Arthur's chest. As if it came against his will, Merlin's voice thick and hitched over the syllables of it, he confessed, "It hurt."

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut finally at that and curled over the shaking man in front of him. "I know," he whispered. There was nothing else that he could say that wouldn't be trite or empty or self-serving, so he let his body speak instead, kneeling on the ground as a shabby, worn shelter in the dark. It was a long time before either of them moved.

~TBC~

* * *

 **End Note: Trigger warning. Off-screen dub-con/non-con, brief. Sexual coercion, blackmail, trust and consent issues. This is not a recovery fic or a magical healing peen fic. The triggery things are part of the plot, but not the main point of the plot or even the main story line.  
**


End file.
